Viburnum Funds has acquired a 25 per cent stake in mining data company MaxMine for an undisclosed sum, signalling a long-term partnership between the companies.
Viburnum Funds has acquired a 25 per cent stake in mining data company MaxMine for an undisclosed sum, signalling a long-term partnership between the companies.
MaxMine was founded in 2015 in Adelaide and has since grown to a team of 40 with offices in Sydney, Perth and South Africa.
MaxMine’s namesake flagship tech platform captures large amounts of mine site data, allowing companies to identify and eliminate problems and boost efficiency in site operations.
Mining equipment is fitted with sensors, allowing MaxMine to capture data in real time on a granular scale.
Data from the sensors can be used to identify problem areas in mining operations in areas such as costs, payload, machine health, and mine plan compliance.
In one case study, MaxMine’s data was used to measure machine operators on their conformance to payload targets.
Operators who frequently overloaded trucks were given extra coaching, allowing the site to reduce payload variation and increase payload targets.
Viburnum’s managing partner, Marshall Allen said the company’s data capture and analytics offering is an increasingly attractive prospect for mining companies under pressure to optimise productivity.
“There has been a fundamental shift in the mining industry’s interest in data and its ability to deliver insight and MaxMine is at the forefront of that shift and puts the tools right into the hands of the operators and decision makers,” Mr Allen said.
Mr Allen will join Matthew Long, Tom Cawley and Robin Schleich on the board of MaxMine as part of the deal.
MaxMine is currently deployed at open-pit gold, copper and coal mines in Australia and Africa, and the company said that their platform has, at one site, delivered improvements of 5 per cent to payloads, 10 per cent to haul efficiency, and reduced queue times by up to 50 per cent.
MaxMine was advised by Atrico on the deal.
MaxMine chief executive Tom Cawley said the company was looking to expand past their open-cut mining offering, targeting underground mine operations.
“Viburnum and MaxMine have a shared goal of partnering for the long-term to accelerate digital adoption in mining,” Mr Cawley said.
