Australia-based IMDEX Limited, a mining services firm, has acquired Norway-based Earth Science Analytics, an AI-driven geoscience software company, as part of its continued push to scale its digital orebody intelligence capabilities across minerals, energy, infrastructure, and beyond.
The Australian company will initially acquire an 80.5 per cent controlling equity interest for A$26M (approximately €14.54M).
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The remaining 19.5 per cent will be acquired after four years through a put and call agreement, with a minimum value of A$7 million and additional performance-based upside.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of August 2025.
This transaction will enable IMDEX to combine its existing products — Datarock, aiSIRIS, and Mineportal into ESA’s EarthNET platform. This will create an open platform for Earth systems and provide improved AI-driven geoscience solutions for our customers.
Financial impact
The company will complete the full profit and loss consolidation, recognising a 19.5 per cent non-controlling interest.
It expects approximately A$4M in revenue, resulting in a breakeven EBITDA margin for FY26. Goodwill and intellectual property (IP) assets will be recognised, although the final allocation is yet to be determined.
The estimated increase in finance costs for FY26 is projected to be less than A$1M.
Earth Science Analytics: AI-driven geoscience platform.
Founded in 2016, ESA has developed EarthNET, a cloud-based, AI-driven geoscience platform.
EarthNET helps combine and analyse large datasets, such as pre-drilling geophysical surveys, drillhole sensor data, core farm images, other sensor data, and laboratory results.
This allows machine learning models to be applied across all these data in a cloud-friendly way.
Although ESA mainly serves the energy sector, its platform can be used in any earth science field.
It has turned industrial data into real business benefits, achieving significant productivity improvements, such as a more than 90 per cent reduction in time needed to interpret geophysical data, cutting down cycle times from weeks to hours, and over 95 per cent accuracy in predicting rock properties using AI models trained on reliable data.
ESA’s technology is now at an important stage, having completed development and moved into early market adoption with major oil and gas companies.
Partnering with IMDEX’s digital tools will help ESA grow its customer base in the energy sector and expand the EarthNET platform into minerals and mining.
Dr Eirik Larsen, Chief Executive Officer, Earth Science Analytics, says, “Joining forces with IMDEX marks an exciting new chapter for Earth Science Analytics. Together, we are well-positioned to deliver even greater value to our customers across the energy and mining sectors. I’m deeply grateful to our talented team, whose dedication and innovation have made this milestone possible.”
IMDEX: Helps with faster drilling decisions
IMDEX is a global mining-tech company that enables faster drilling decisions through connected technologies and real-time data.
The company is focused on delivering end-to-end orebody intelligence and digital transformation across the resource sector.
Paul House, Managing Director and CEO, comments, “This acquisition is a defining step in the acceleration of our digital strategy across multiple end markets. By integrating ESA’s talent and EarthNET platform with IMDEX’s existing capabilities, we’re significantly reducing time-to-market for our orebody knowledge solutions. EarthNET is a foundational technology – highly scalable, cloud-native and AI-enabled – that complements our portfolio alongside Datarock and Krux.”
“Combined, these platforms will materially expand our digital offering in FY26 and position it as a primary growth engine for our business. Collectively, these acquisitions are about maximising the use of the data for our customers that we have collected via our HUB-IQ connected sensors that will ultimately facilitate a wide variety of data enrichment that benefits our customers,” adds House.
