A Sudbury-based mining innovation network has received $5 million in federal dollars to continue funding startups that are creating solutions to the sector’s most pressing problems.
The Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) Network announced on March 3 that it had received the funds through Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund, and it’s now seeking proposals for its fourth round of funding.
"The MICA Network is mobilizing Canadian intellectual property (IP), attracting investments in mining, and is responding to a clarion call for Canada to secure its global leadership in advancing emerging made-in-Canada solutions into the national and global mining sector,” Chamirai Charles Nyabeze, MICA’s network director, said in a news release.
The funding was announced in conjunction with the 2025 convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, which is taking place March 2-5 in Toronto.
Launched in 2021, the MICA network comprises mining companies, industrial suppliers, academic organizations and researchers, and industrial innovators from across Canada.
Their goal is to find new innovations to modernize the mining industry, with four areas of priority:
- increase mine production capacity, at lower cost;
- reduce mining energy consumption and GHG emissions;
- implement smart, autonomous mining systems; and
- reduce environmental risk and long-term liabilities, with an emphasis on critical mineral and metals enabling technologies, circularity, and social license to operate.
MICA has, to date, allocated $29.5 million in funding to eligible projects through three separate cohorts.
The fourth cohort is now open, and MICA anticipates funding roughly 10 projects. The deadline to apply is March 28.
MICA is an initiative of the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, which is also headquartered in Sudbury.
