Aspermont gets cash injection, launches market intelligence platform
Loss-making resources mining publisher Aspermont has launched a mining market intelligence platform, struck a deal with Rio Tinto to digitise its back catalogue, and raised $1.75 million from investors in a flurry of activity designed to transform its business model.
Aspermont publishes Australia’s Mining Monthly and Miningnews.net, along with the long-running Mining Journal and a range of other global resources titles.
In July, Aspermont filed the first quarterly accounts required because of its negative cashflow. The accounts showed that at the current burn rate, the company had the funds to survive just over five quarters.
That equation has changed with the commitments from what Aspermont describe as “leading European institutional investors” at a reported 40% premium to the most recent share price. A new share purchase plan will allow existing shareholdings to participate on the same terms.
The company also launched Mining-IQ.com, a subscription-based information service that will draw on its mining content to help users analyse “mining risk, project pipelines, ESG company performance, investor sentiment, and sector leadership.”
At launch, the service is providing just the risk analysis component, in partnership with MineHutte. An explainer outside the paywall shows a world map with countries rated according to the ease of operating there for miners. The example image indicates that Canada is the world’s best nation to do mining business with, while Venezuela is the worst.
Want to know what was happening October 10, 1835? You’re in luck
Mining Journal was first published in 1835. Aspermont announced a program to digitize the back-issues of Mining Journal and its other print publications for ingestion by a “bespoke, enterprise-grade large language model”. Rio Tinto will pay approximately $550,000 to finance the project and gain exclusive access to the LLM for six months.
“The launch of Mining-IQ.com and our landmark partnership with one of the world’s largest mining companies mark the start of a new chapter for Aspermont,” Aspermont Managing Director Alex Kent was quoted as saying in a release to the ASX.
“We are now extending our role from delivering trusted journalism and research to enabling data-driven decision making across the global resources sector.”
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