Vancouver startup CRM Geotomography Technologies is getting ready to go to market and will do so under a new name and new leadership.
The spin-off from TRIUMF–Canada’s national particle accelerator laboratory located at UBC–is now called Ideon Technologies and Gary Agnew has been named the new CEO.
Agnew most recently led the global digital strategy and digital division at Finning International and has 25 years leadership experience in industrial and B2B markets.
The rebranded entity is building on nine years of research, development, and field trials conducted on a breakthrough technology that promises to disrupt the US $12 billion+ global mineral exploration market.
Recently named to BC’s 2020 CleanTech Ready to Rocket list, Ideon is a world-leader in cosmic-ray muon tomography.
This discipline measures subatomic particles that penetrate the ground to provide x-ray-like visibility up to 1 km beneath the Earth’s surface.
With most near-surface deposits already discovered, the mining industry is forced to search deeper underground. Without suitable tools available, discovery rates have fallen sharply while exploration costs have skyrocketed.
Combining proprietary detectors, imaging systems, inversion technologies, and artificial intelligence techniques, Ideon has developed a discovery platform that detects muons and transforms the data into reliable geophysical surveys and 3D density maps.
This helps exploration geologists identify new mineral and metal deposits with precision and confidence. By drilling less and discovering more, mining companies reduce risk and cost, save time, and minimize the environmental impact of exploration.
Ideon has proven that it can reduce exploration drilling activity by ten times and can identify exploration targets with 95% or higher certainty.
For an industry that has invested US $198 billion in exploration over the past 10 years with -45% return on investment, this is a game-changer.
“Our vision is to use muon tomography to transform subsurface exploration in the same way that x-rays transformed modern medicine,” says Agnew. “X-rays help medical professionals see inside the human body to detect anomalies; our discovery platform gives geologists the ability to see inside the Earth, to detect targets with 95% or higher certainty and at a fraction of the cost, time and environmental impact of current methods.”
Agnew joins co-founders Doug Schouten, PhD (Chief Technology Officer and global expert in muon tomography) and Don Furseth (Vice-President Product and technology leader in imaging systems). Schouten and Furseth guided the startup to a Top 10 finish in the 2018 New Ventures BC Competition.