TheChek News Flow

This past year wasn’t the highest-grossing period for robotics startup investment. However, it was one of the flashiest.

In areas from humanoid coworker bots to AI robot brains, startups developing some of the most scifi-esque applications of the technology scored the year’s largest rounds. Big deals skewed early stage as well, indicating the cycle is likely just getting started.

Illustrative of the trend is Figure, a 2-year-old startup dedicated to “bringing a general purpose humanoid to life.” Founded in 2022, the Silicon Valley startup pulled in $675 million in Series B funding in February to further its vision of building robots to perform unsafe and undesirable jobs.

Another example is the year’s second-biggest round, which went to robot brain developer Physical Intelligence. The San Francisco startup, founded just this year, pulled in $400 million at a $2 billion valuation last month.

Altogether, robotics-related startups secured around $7.2 billion in seed- through growth-stage investments in 2024, per Crunchbase data. That’s slightly above year-ago levels, but still well below the 2021 market peak, as charted below.

Versatile robots

One trend we’re seeing in the funding tallies is that investors are interested in startups developing versatile robots capable of doing more than just a simple task or two.

Besides Figure and Physical Intelligence, another exemplar of this concept is Pittsburgh-based Skild AI, which is also developing brain models that can be used in a variety of robots and for different tasks. It raised a $300 million Series A in July at $1.5 billion valuation.

A few months earlier, Silicon Valley-based Collaborative Robotics landed a $100 million Series B to create what it calls “practical collaborative robots” — or “cobots” — to work alongside humans in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare and retail. And San Francisco’s Bright Machines, which focuses on flexible factory robots, wrapped up a $106 million equity financing in June.

On the home front, meanwhile, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt launched The Bot Company this year with a focus on household robotics. The San Francisco startup closed on $150 million in initial funding to build a robot that will help with a variety of household chores.

Help wanted

Robotics startups commonly point to current and projected labor shortages as a motivating factor. Figure founder Brett Adcock’s master plan for the company, for instance, is built on the premise that “there are over 10 million unsafe or undesirable jobs in the U.S. alone,” and that an aging population will only make positions harder to fill.

Using Crunchbase data, we put together a list of 14 companies that raised large rounds this year with a focus on developing robots to do work currently performed by humans.

One robotics power investor and major employer who appears to share this vision is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fund, Bezos Expeditions. Bezos, whose company is known for its embrace of warehouse automation technologies, has backed at least four major rounds for robotics companies this year through his investment vehicles: Figure, Physical Intelligence, Skild AI and Swiss-Mile, which is developing a wheel-legged robot.

Surgical robotics, drones and more

Beyond workplace bots and AI robot brains, we also saw continued investment in areas that have long been major robotics startup sectors.

Surgical robotics is one. This year, two of the biggest investments went to MMI, a developer of technology for robotic-assisted microsurgical procedures, and Capstan Medical, which is working on robotics-enabled technology offering a less invasive alternative to traditional open heart surgery. Both raised $110 million Series C rounds.

Drones and robot delivery vehicles scooped up considerable funding over the years, and continued to do so in 2024. Skydio, which sells drones for enterprise and military use cases, landed a $170 million extension round last month. In the delivery space, another startup with the military as a primary customer, autonomous ground transportation provider Forterra, locked up a $75 million Series B.

Not about exits (yet)

Broadly, the pipeline of funded robotics startups this year fits mostly in what I’d call the “fun to watch” stage. That is, the most heavily funded names are largely early stage, with huge ambitions, fascinating business plans and modest pressure at this point to produce consistent earnings or a clear path to profitability.

Investors, too, seem willing to play wait-and-see if their portfolio companies can deliver on early promises.

It looks like an exceedingly risky proposition, albeit one with potential for enormous returns. That, at least, is what Figure expects in its master plan which admits that: “We face high risk and extremely low chances of success.”

“However, if we are successful,” Figure maintains, “we have the potential to positively impact humanity and to build the largest company on the planet.”

Carlos Slim, Latin America’s richest man, boosted his stakes in American energy companies in the current year as the world’s leading tycoons continue betting on fossil fuels.

Slim invested $602 million in Parsippany, New Jersey-based refiner PBF Energy, boosting his stake to 25%, and also bought $326 million worth of shares in Houston-based oil producer Talos Energy.

Last year, the Mexican billionaire’s Grupo Carso SAB agreed to acquire PetroBal SAPI’s stake in two oil fields in Campeche in southern Mexico for $530 million, expanding its bet on energy production.

Under the deal, Grupo Carso will take a 50% stake in the Ichalkil and Pokoch oil field. According to the company, the fields produce about 16,350 barrels of crude oil equivalent per day. Carso shares jumped to record highs after the deal was announced. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador welcomed the deal despite earlier being critical of energy reforms that opened exploration to private investment,

“Why do I celebrate this? Because it stays in the hands of Mexicans and I’m sure that they’re going to invest to extract crude. I consider that to be good news,” the president said at his daily news conference.

Obradors’ nationalist policies have seen the Mexican government become increasingly hostile to foreign companies.

Last year, giant oil and commodities trading firm, Trafigura, was forced to scale back its oil trading business in Mexico thanks to shrinking margins.

Trafigura has recorded margin compression due to fuel subsidies by the Mexican government.

Meanwhile, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has continued growing its oil and gas stakes. Two weeks ago, Berkshire Hathaway bought another 8.9 million shares of Occidental Petroleum with the company now owning 260 million shares of OXY. Berkshire Hathaway's OXY stake is currently worth $12 billion, making it the company’s sixth largest holding.

Instead of touting projects as ‘clean and affordable,’ renewables firms are highlighting their projects’ ability to meet energy needs

Green energy companies are freaking out, trying to figure out how to navigate the Republican sweep of the White House and Congress.

After being a favorite punching bag of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign, they are reaching out to incoming cabinet appointees, hunting for friendly members of the transition team and calling on Republican members of Congress, according to executives. Some say they raced to order equipment or move dirt on projects before the new year to grandfather-in lucrative tax credits.

Stakes are high. Significant reductions to tax credits, and Trump’s promised tariffs on imports, could reduce investment in new renewables plants by $350 billion over the next decade, said Chris Seiple, vice chairman of power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie.

In Washington, D.C., the industry has gone into defense mode. Executives traveled to the capital to meet with Republican members of Congress in December, people familiar with the matter say. Advisers have suggested the industry tweak its talking points. Instead of touting projects as “clean and affordable,” renewables firms are highlighting their projects’ ability to “meet energy needs.”

Some executives say they are pinning their hopes on North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s choice for Interior Department secretary who would also chair a planned National Energy Council.

North Dakota is a coal and oil state, but under Burgum it also has welcomed wind energy, which provided 36% of its power generation in 2023. The executives are cautiously optimistic that Burgum’s business-friendly background will translate to a pragmatic approach at Interior, which oversees public lands and minerals, including energy development such as solar farms and offshore wind projects.

Above all, many in the industry hope that the country’s growing need for more electricity—to power things like AI data centers—will carry the day.

“It’s all about demand right now,” said Jim Murphy, president and co-founder of Invenergy, a developer of renewables, transmission and natural-gas power. “If you look at the forecasts, we’re going to need everything as fast as we can get it.”

Addition, not subtraction

Solar, wind and battery storage have been on a tear in recent years, with investment boosted by tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature climate law. About $75 billion in new projects connected to the grid between September 2022 and March, according to the American Clean Power Association.

Trump has called the IRA a scam and wants it repealed. His victory has plunged the renewable-power industry into a period of policy uncertainty. Few expect a wholesale repeal, but parts of the IRA are likely to be scrapped.

The election results set off a wave of unease and employee questions within the clean-energy industry. Many companies held town halls to answer questions or sent companywide emails reassuring workers that projects would continue, several executives and advisers said.

One helpful trend for the industry is that after roughly two decades of little to no growth in power demand because of efficiency gains, electricity-usage forecasts have skyrocketed in many states because of the spread of AI, EVs, manufacturing and broader electrification efforts. Utilities compare it with the introduction of air conditioning.

That trend has allowed companies to take a page out of the playbook of the oil-and-gas industry, which spent the past four years under the Biden administration using terms such as “addition, not subtraction” to talk about energy sources.

Sheldon Kimber, chief executive of clean-energy developer Intersect Power, said a key message to members of Congress is to preserve the “durability of the IRA and the tax credits in a world where demand is off the charts,” and not to make any changes retroactive. Intersect has a $20 billion plan to build renewables and batteries at new data centers with Alphabet’s Google and private-equity firm TPG.

“That’s the number one thing is just get everybody on the same page ” said Kimber. “Our government puts policy down and people invest billions of dollars based upon that policy.”

Some green executives hope Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk will play a mitigating role in Trump’s view on renewables. Tesla makes batteries for EVs and grid-scale storage projects, and sells home solar and storage.

Likewise, Chris Wright, Trump’s choice for energy secretary, touts fossil fuels as a way to end energy poverty but is viewed by renewables developers as a pro-business company founder. Wright’s Liberty Energy has invested in green-energy startups pursuing nuclear and geothermal projects.

Trump has said he wants to unleash more U.S. oil and gas production, but tax credits for wind and solar survived and were extended under the first Trump administration, said Akshat Kasliwal, head of renewable asset analytics at PA Consulting.

“At that time, we were not facing reliability issues to the extent we are now,” Kasliwal added.

Worst-case scenarios

Tax cuts passed in 2017 during Trump’s first term will expire at the end of this year, and Republican leaders say extending them is a must. They will look to cut trillions of dollars to offset deficits. Repealing clean-energy subsidies in part or whole has been repeatedly mentioned as a potential source of funding.

As a hedge against the tax-bill debate going poorly for them, some developers were in a frenzy to start projects by Dec. 31.

Companies ordered equipment such as transformers or began roadwork at sites. Those actions can prove that construction had started, which would safeguard access to existing investment-tax credits even if projects are completed later under a less-generous tax regime, said Tim Urban, tax policy leader at Bracewell.

Erik Lensch, CEO of Leyline Renewable Capital, which lends to developers, received a flood of funding requests after the election to get projects started in a hurry.

The technology considered most at risk to lose tax credits or face delays with federal permits is offshore wind. Trump has directed some of his fiercest criticism at offshore wind projects, which he promised to “end on day one.”

Murphy, of Invenergy, said the strong campaign rhetoric is concerning. The developer holds offshore wind leases off the New Jersey and California coasts.

“If we have to hunker down and hold on to our position and see if the situation changes, we’ll see if the situation changes,” Murphy said.

US stocks soar more than 20% for second year in a row

Investor excitement over AI helps Big Tech once again drive gains in blue-chip S&P 500

The US’s S&P 500 index has risen more than 20 per cent for the second year in a row, as investor excitement about artificial intelligence fuels strong gains in megacap technology stocks.

Despite a sell-off in December, the basket of blue-chip stocks has ended 2024 up 23.3 per cent, following a 24.2 per cent gain the previous year, marking its best two-year run of performance this century. The index has now made annual gains of more than 20 per cent four times in the past six years.

The rally has been led by big tech stocks exposed to AI. Shares in chipmaker Nvidia have gained 172 per cent over the year, while Meta, which has also bet heavily on the nascent technology, has risen 65 per cent.

The S&P 500’s performance stands in contrast to European markets, with the Stoxx 600 gaining 6 per cent and the FTSE 100 rising 5.7 per cent. An MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks is up 7.6 per cent.

“The US [market] has rarely been so exceptional,” said Michael Metcalfe, head of macro strategy at State Street Global Markets.

Wall Street stocks have also been lifted by the Federal Reserve’s cuts to interest rates for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic and resilient economic data that has reassured investors that the US is heading for a soft landing. Expectations of tax cuts and looser regulation during Donald Trump’s second term as president have also fuelled gains in recent months.

Benjamin Bowler, Bank of America strategist, said Trump’s “laissez-faire economics, tax cuts and deregulation”, coupled with a potential “AI revolution”, meant the rally was likely to continue into 2025. Although 2024 was undoubtedly “a good year” for the US stock market, “it may only be the beginning”, he said.

But Chris Jeffery, head of macro at $1.4tn-in-assets fund manager Legal & General Investment Management, said there were “quite a few red flags that should make us a bit cautious”.

The difference between forward price-to-earnings ratios in US and European stocks could only be justified if “you believe that the last 10 years [of tech-driven US earnings growth] can carry on, and carry on for an awful long time”, he added.

Investors have also had to dial back their expectations of rate cuts over the coming year. With inflation still above target, forecasts released by the Fed suggesting interest rates will fall in 2025 by less than previously hoped inflicted the S&P 500’s worst session in four months in early December. That damped investor exuberance after Trump’s election win in November, and helped push the index down 2.5 per cent in December.

Megacap tech stocks including the so-called Magnificent Seven — Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia and Tesla — were again the dominant force in the US market.

Bulls contend that Big Tech’s earnings growth and AI’s potential to spur productivity justify valuations.

Mike Zigmont, co-head of trading and research at Visdom Investment Group, said that, barring a collapse of revenue, the Magnificent Seven would remain highly popular in 2025 because of the outsized returns they have delivered in the past. “Investors just seek them out,” he said.

But their gains have prompted bearish commentators to draw comparisons between today’s top-heavy market and the tech bubble that burst spectacularly at the turn of the millennium. 

In contrast to the tech sector’s gains, industrial materials companies were among the S&P 500’s worst performers in 2024 as China’s struggling economy and fears of a US recession that has yet to materialise dented investors’ appetite. 

Bouts of volatility briefly interrupted the S&P 500’s otherwise steady ascent. In addition to December’s fall, stocks sold off sharply in early August, with falls extending beyond the tech sector.

Nevertheless, at the start of December asset managers’ net long exposure to the S&P 500 had risen to the highest level in more than 20 years, according to Bank of America’s monthly survey of global fund managers, indicating “super-bullish sentiment”. Meanwhile, retail investor enthusiasm for stock market gains over the next year had never been higher, according to Deutsche Bank.

However, Citi’s closely watched US economic surprise index has slipped in recent weeks, indicating that economic momentum is trending weaker than expected. Some analysts say that sluggish growth in the amount of money circulating in the US economy, high Treasury yields and a strong dollar all point to a potential economic contraction in 2025.

Investors have sold tech stocks in recent days, while the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks has slipped further from its November record high. The equal-weighted S&P 500, which gives a 0.2 per cent weighting to each constituent, has shed 6.6 per cent over the past month. 

The concentration of returns in Big Tech will remain a “pain trade” for investment funds which can only hold so much of any single stock, said Charlie McElligott, a strategist at Nomura.

Investors “just can’t own enough” of the biggest names, he added.

China steps up drive to break Boeing and Airbus grip on plane market

State-owned Comac opens offices abroad and pushes for overseas certification as it increases output of C919 jets

China is stepping up its push to break the grip of Boeing and Airbus on the aircraft market, as the state-run maker of the country’s first homegrown passenger jet seeks certifications for it to fly beyond the country’s shores.

Comac’s heavily subsidised C919, which made its maiden commercial flight in 2023, is already flown on domestic routes by China’s three big state-owned carriers: Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. From this month, China Eastern will fly the C919 between Hong Kong and Shanghai, its first regular commercial route outside China’s mainland.

Yang Yang, the company’s deputy general manager of marketing and sales, told the Financial Times the company was aiming for the single-aisle plane to be flying in south-east Asia by 2026 and to gain European certification as early as this year.

“We hope to operate more of the jets domestically in China and to thoroughly identify any issues before . . . bringing them to south-east Asia,” he said.

The C919 is a pivotal project in President Xi Jinping’s drive for China to move up the technology value chain, with the ultimate aim of challenging the western duopoly of Boeing and Airbus.

Boeing’s financial woes and delivery delays, as well as wider supply chain problems in the industry that have left it and Airbus facing engine and component shortages, have weighed on the global aviation sector and offered hope for newcomers.

The world will need 42,430 new aircraft over the next two decades, roughly 80 per cent of which will be single-aisle aircraft, according to an Airbus forecast in 2024. Aviation consultancy IBA predicts that Comac can raise its output of C919s — 16 of which have been delivered to Chinese airlines as of December — from one to 11 a month by 2040, by which time it can deliver almost 2,000 units of the aircraft.

However, Jonathan McDonald, IBA’s manager for classic and cargo aircraft, said that while Comac would eventually penetrate export markets, “for the foreseeable future Airbus and Boeing will be the main suppliers of narrow-bodies to most airlines”.

Global certification and maintenance support remain significant hurdles to Comac’s ambition for the C919 to operate overseas. 

In a move to boost its international presence, Comac opened new overseas outposts in Singapore and Hong Kong in October.

The new offices were necessary to help drive new aircraft orders from customers, according to Mayur Patel, head of Asia for OAG Aviation.

But Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, said building “elaborate product support facilities in export markets is very hard and expensive work, and a necessary precondition for competing with Airbus and Boeing”.

While several carriers in Asia have expressed interest in the C919, some executives say privately that they remain hesitant.

“Maintenance support is the main issue,” said a person close to Indonesia’s TransNusa, which has already received three of Comac’s smaller ARJ21 aircraft and is considering flying the C919.

The path for Comac to gain overseas certification, particularly from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, is also challenging, according to analysts.

“IBA does not expect the C919 to be certified in Europe in the immediate future,” McDonald said. “Europe has very strict certification parameters.”

Meanwhile, certification from the US Federal Aviation Authority is likely to be complicated by US-China tensions.

EU and US regulators are often the “gold standard” for other global authorities, according to David Yu, an aviation industry expert at NYU Shanghai.

In parallel with its push with the C919, Comac is also developing its first widebody aircraft, the C929. At one of China’s largest air shows in Zhuhai in November, the company announced that state-owned Air China had become the first airline to pledge to fly the jet, which is aimed at challenging the larger planes made by Airbus and Boeing such as the 787 Dreamliner.

Sash Tusa, a UK-based aerospace and defence analyst, said that while the C929 offered China another opportunity to prove its technological advancement in the aerospace sector, the country would still probably be reliant on overseas engines for commercial jets. IBA estimates that the C929 will not come into service before 2040.

For the C919, key components are still western-made. The jet’s engines are supplied by Franco-American venture CFM International while its auxiliary power units are made by US-based Honeywell.

“So far, [Comac is] building aircraft that are mostly western by value, but with Chinese structures,” said AeroDynamic Advisory’s Aboulafia. “That makes production ramps dependent on western willingness to continue providing systems, and, given a Trump presidency, there’s no guarantee of that at all.”

Comac would probably not be able to get any “fair share of the global market” within the next decade, Tusa said, but would provide an important “import substitution” for domestic Chinese airlines.

“Airbus builds in China. Boeing doesn’t,” he said. “So Comac comes in as the second supplier. Import substitution doesn’t make you a competitor. That makes you an act of state policy.”

Telecoms groups forecast to reap $10bn windfall from recycled copper

Industry is decommissioning legacy lines as demand for metal expected to grow

Telecoms groups around the world are forecast to collectively make more than $10bn from the sale of copper over the next 15 years as they remove older cables from their networks, in a boost for the sector as demand for the metal is expected to grow.

Operators are forecast to receive as much as $720mn from copper sales in 2025, according to TXO, which helps telecoms companies recycle and sell the metal. UK-based BT, Nordic operators Telia and Telenor, and Australia’s Telstra are among the companies to have already booked payments for the recycled metal, which is vital for the transition to clean energy.

The industry has been decommissioning legacy copper lines as full-fibre broadband and wireless technology are rolled out, with the groups set to benefit from rising copper prices, which are expected to reach about $12,000 a metric tonne by 2035, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights, up from the present $9,170 a tonne.

Rupert Wood, research director at Analysys Mason, said: “While some copper cables will not be economically recoverable, the potential net one-off financial gains globally still run into many tens of billions of dollars.” He added that the consulting firm expected most telecoms companies to have fully decommissioned copper by 2035.

Prices for the metal, which is used in electricity grids, wiring and electric cars, are volatile and surged to a record high of more than $11,100 in May.

Global demand is expected to rise by 70 per cent from 2021 levels by 2050, according to miner BHP, as the energy transition and power grid buildout create a shortage of the metal.

David Evans, group head of asset recovery services at TXO, said: “Operators engaging in copper recovery now are not only unlocking substantial financial returns but are also addressing a pressing global need for resource sustainability.”

He added that an anticipated surge in demand for the metal “comes at a time when the copper mining industry is unlikely to keep up, pointing to potential supply shortages and higher prices”.

In Australia, Telstra has made a combined total of A$211mn (US$132mn) over the past two financial years from the sale of extracted copper cabling.

BT reported a pre-payment of £105mn for the forward sale of copper in its 2024 financial year. It has also agreed a deal with recycler EMR to support the extraction and recycling of copper cable from its network until 2028. The group has a separate programme to recover old network equipment to reuse or recycle and resell.

Sweden-based Telia said it was expecting to make about €2mn to €3mn from copper sales in 2025, having already received €25mn so far after the company started to phase out its copper network.

Norwegian group Telenor plans to recover and sell approximately 250 tonnes of copper from cables in 2025, which would result in revenue of about €1mn under a revenue-sharing model with its demolition contractor.

The company intends to sell about €68mn worth of copper, primarily from aerial cables and cables in buildings, in the future.

US group AT&T said it was “ramping up our copper recycling efforts over the next few years and reselling it, which allows us to take that money and put it back into the network” and had recycled more than 32,000 metric tonnes since 2021.

For many operators, the revenue received has been immaterial. Companies have to contend with the expense and complexity of recovery as well as the ongoing threat of copper-cable theft.

Belgian group Proximus said the amounts it had made from the sale of copper were “not significant” due to “substantial” costs related to the extraction of cables, low copper content and the complex process to separate it from other materials present.

Dutch operator KPN said it had sold copper from decommissioned networks in small-scale pilots and was following developments in the market, but it was “not so easy” to extract underground copper networks and “quite an expensive operation”.

The copper recovery process was “not straightforward”, said Peter Barnes, a managing director within Macquarie’s commodities financing team. “The regulatory and operational complexity of these projects is significant. A lot of time is spent ensuring that a legacy network can be decommissioned and extracted in line with regulations, after which a bespoke recycling process is required to ultimately produce a saleable commodity.”

KoBold Metals aims to lead race for critical minerals needed for energy transition

A mining and artificial intelligence start-up backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos has raised $537mn in its latest funding round, as it seeks to become a key player in the race for the critical minerals needed for the energy transition.

Berkeley-based KoBold Metals said its series C funding round valued the company at $2.96bn, and was co-led by existing investor T Rowe Price, which has been joined by Durable Capital Partners.

Existing investors including Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and US venture capital group Andreessen Horowitz also participated in the round, along with new backers including private capital group StepStone.

KoBold, which has raised $1bn to date, is among the western mining companies seeking to compete with Chinese rivals to produce metals such as copper, lithium and nickel.

The metals are used in everything from batteries for electric vehicles to the defence industry, and western governments have been increasingly seeking to diversify away from supply chains dominated by China.

As part of these efforts, the US is helping finance the revival of the Lobito railway line that will transport critical minerals across swaths of Africa and connect the Democratic Republic of Congo with Zambia and Angola.

KoBold, which uses AI to comb through historical and scientific data to identify untapped mineral deposits, said in February that it had discovered a huge deposit of copper in Zambia. The $2bn Mingomba site would produce at least 300,000 tonnes per year from the 2030s, KoBold said.

KoBold’s co-founder and chief executive Kurt House said about 40 per cent of the new capital would be spent on developing existing projects into mines, with the Zambian copper project taking “the lion’s share of that”.

The company — which uses OpenAI’s generative AI technology as well as more traditional AI — planned to “add at least three jurisdictions” including Finland and Botswana, House said, adding that he was excited about the prospects for lithium mining in Canada.

House said he was confident that there was broad political support in the US for improving access to critical minerals despite incoming president Donald Trump having indicated that he wants to roll back support for electric vehicles — a key market for metals including lithium.

There is “very broad bipartisan support for diversifying [the] supply of critical minerals” because this is a “national security priority”, he said. “We’ve had plenty of conversations with people who will be associated with the next administration who are very enthusiastic about KoBold’s mission.”

KoBold plans to hire “aggressively” and add data scientists who have a more traditional technology background to its teams, as well geoscientists to survey possible deposits and collect data, said House. The company was likely to go public within three to five years, he added.

“There’s a real demand from [mining] majors to partner with [KoBold] so clearly they’re doing something right,” said David George, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “I don’t think there’s an obvious modern competitor in the space.”

KoBold has an exploration partnership with mining major BHP in Western Australia and is also working with Rio Tinto.

Carmichael Roberts, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, said KoBold’s AI-driven approach to mineral exploration would create “a more secure, affordable, and clean energy future for all”.

Why the Dollar’s Epic Rally Could Have a Little Further to Run

Key drivers in 2025 are likely to be Trump’s policies and their impact on inflation and the Fed’s stance on rates

The U.S. dollar is entering the new year on a high—and most signs point to more strength ahead.

The currency is a key beneficiary of U.S. exceptionalism. The American economy is growing faster than most, with Europe stuck in a manufacturing rut and China struggling to contain the fallout from its property meltdown.

The Federal Reserve’s newfound hesitance to cut interest rates adds to the appeal of holding dollars, while the artificial-intelligence euphoria that has lifted U.S. stocks continues to draw in foreign investors. Many investors expect Donald Trump’s return to the White House to supercharge the U.S.’s appeal.

The dollar is wrapping up its best quarter since 2016 versus a basket of currencies tracked by The Wall Street Journal. It is on course to end the year with gains against every major peer, having risen especially sharply against volatile emerging-market counterparts. As of Monday, the greenback is up about 20% this year against the Mexican peso and nearly 30% against the Brazilian real.

Key drivers next year are likely to be Trump’s policies, analysts say, and the impact those have on inflation and the Federal Reserve’s stance on interest rates.

“Where are people investing nowadays? Number one is the U.S.,” said Dominic Schnider, head of global foreign exchange at UBS’s wealth-management division.

Yet Schnider, like many currency forecasters, doubts the dollar rally can last. He says investors are overly fixated on the expected growth boost from Trump’s pledges to cut taxes and red tape.

They are ignoring many risks, he said, such as potential blowback on the U.S. economy if Trump follows through on threats to impose new tariffs on foreign goods. U.S. government finances are also shakier than in Trump’s first term, with the federal-budget deficit above 6% of gross domestic product, compared with 3.1% in 2016.

“What Trump promises seems great for investment and returns. But can we finance it?” said Schnider. “That’s where the disappointment happens.”

Schnider expects the dollar to lose steam in the first quarter and to end 2025 down 5% from current levels against the euro and 8% off against the Japanese yen.

Momentum can lead the greenback to diverge from estimates of “fair” value for long periods. The dollar surged in the 1990s. After peaking shortly following the 9/11 attacks and the bursting of the dot-com bubble, it fell for much of the 2000s, before bottoming out in 2008 at the start of the global financial crisis.

Still, the dollar’s elevated level makes further gains more difficult.

“Investors must consider how much ‘U.S. exceptionalism’ is already reflected in market prices,” said Hugh Gimber, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “The dollar is much stronger today than it was ahead of President Trump’s first term at this stage in 2016.”

Tariffs and Fed caution over rate cuts should boost the dollar in the first months of the year, said Athanasios Vamvakidis, head of G-10 foreign-exchange strategy at Bank of America. But he later expects it to fall, whether Trump can fully implement his agenda or not.

If Trump can push through his full slate of tariffs, tax cuts and immigration changes, inflation is likely to rise more than markets anticipate, Vamvakidis says. That could initially boost the dollar by forcing the Fed to pause rate cuts, or even raise rates again. But this would ultimately slow the economy and weigh on the dollar.

Alternatively, if Trump’s policies ultimately get watered down, so would their potential growth boost, and U.S. outperformance would fade, he says. Here, investors are looking to Trump’s first term for a history lesson.

The dollar rallied after Trump’s 2016 election, peaked just before his inauguration, and then fell 7.5% in 2017, his first year as president. That marked the worst year for the WSJ Dollar Index since 2007.

“The market has tried to price, in a month, the next four years, and Trump has not even started yet,” said Vamvakidis. “The lesson from his first term was that it was not a straight line. In some areas, Trump started aggressive, but there were more pragmatic solutions.”

Another risk is that the storm clouds hanging over foreign economies—the flip side of U.S. exceptionalism—begin to clear.

The euro has tumbled as Europe teeters on the brink of recession and political volatility weighs on its two biggest economies. Even small improvements in the outlook could lift the euro, said Steve Englander, head of G-10 foreign-exchange research at Standard Chartered.

“When was the last time anybody said anything good about Europe? Europe looks weak, but that’s well-known,” he said. “For the euro to go up, all you need is for people to be moderately positively surprised by anything.”