LONDON - Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has invested in Swiss-based Open Mineral to help scale up its online metal concentrate exchange that allows mining companies and smelters to trade directly and cut out middlemen.

Open Mineral has raised $33 million, the company said in a release on Thursday.

Mubadala Investment Company is the lead investor.

Statkraft and Lingfeng Capital are the other new investors joining existing investors Xploration Capital and Emerald Technology Ventures.

Miners and smelters post bids and offer and agree deals on the platform and Open Mineral facilitates trade execution for which it earns fees.

"The metal trading industry's future is in digital data and analytics enabling market participants to communicate faster and make quicker, more data-driven decisions, said Open Mineral CEO Boris Eykher.

"Excluding concentrates produced by miners that smelt their own metal, the concentrate market is worth more than $150 billion a year, with participants still trading via paper documents."

More than 900 metals and mining companies are currently registered on the Open Mineral Platform, which also include environment social and governance (ESG) features.

"With the help of third-party data, we can calculate CO2 emissions for every combination of mine to smelter globally," Eykher said.

"We also know the sulphur content in the concerntrate from every mine around the world so we can predict sulphur dioxide emissions."

Open Mineral is aiming to add Scope 3 emissions to its database on mines and smelters. Scope 3 measures indirect emissions in a company's value chain and includes consumers goods and transport and distribution.

 

(Reporting by Pratima Desai; editing by Jason Neely) ((pratima.desai@thomsonreuters.com; +44 207 513 5681;))