Transition is transforming copper mining, supercharging rock-munching microbes

The company’s performance-maximizing additives boost ore-eating organisms, for cheaper, greener biomining

The first time Sasha Milshteyn visited a biomining site, he was awestruck. Towering above him was a 2,000-foot-tall mountain of ore being slowly digested by microbes. That moment led the biologist-turned-entrepreneur to found his own company, aiming to make the mining industry more efficient and environmentally friendly by harnessing genomics and billions of years of evolution.

Milshteyn’s company, Transition Metal Solutions, develops chemical additives that supercharge the microbes used for mining metal ore. “You can think of it as a kind of precision fertilizer or prebiotic,” he explains.

Transition, currently participating in the Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials pilot program, today announced the successful completion of an oversubscribed $6 million seed round. The round — led by Transition VC (no relation) with participation from top climate and deeptech investors from the U.S., Europe, and Australia — will carry the company from initial product development to testing its novel approach at an industrial scale in the first half of 2026.

“Somebody once told me that biomining solutions have typically either been developed by biologists who have never been to a mine or metallurgists who don’t understand biology,” says Milshteyn, a former bench scientist who spent the last three years immersing himself in the mining industry. “We have a very different approach from what’s been done before, effectively providing a layer of biological optimization to this process.”

How to digest a mountain

Heap leaching, a form of biomining, harnesses the microbes that have been living in ore deposits for billions of years, munching on iron and sulfur. Miners pile ore into hill-sized heaps, dousing them with acid to rev up the microbes’ feasting. Over the course of months, the microbes and acid break the bonds between the ore’s various metals and minerals until the metal particles can be flushed out and salvaged.

While Transition’s technology could aid in mining a variety of metals — including nickel, cobalt, and gold — the company is starting with copper. This metal, necessary to everything from construction to AI data centers, is experiencing skyrocketing demand and value. Heap leaching accounts for around 20% of global copper mining. With much of the planet’s high-quality copper deposits already picked clean, and demand for copper expected to grow by more than 40% by 2040, increasing copper yields is a high priority for the industry.

Heap leaching from sulfide ores, comprising 70-80% of remaining global reserves, typically produces modest yields: Copper mines seldom recover more than 60% of the metal, and often yield closer to 30–40%, according to Milshteyn. He says that biology can improve these recoveries “by 20 to 30 percentage points.”

Current approaches to biomining optimization involve culturing the most productive strains from a mine’s microbial community and introducing armies of these high performers back into the ore. While these reinforcements can boost yields, they do nothing to strengthen the overall microbial ecosystem.

“If we use a sports analogy, this approach is like adding a few superstar athletes to the field,” Milshteyn says. “But microbial communities are more of a team sport where a few superstars can’t carry the game.”

So Transition formulates chemical additives that maximize the performance of the many strains found in these communities. Mining companies could pump Transition’s formula into a mine’s existing irrigation to maximize microbial efficiency. “Instead of adding a few superstar players, we’re developing the whole team,” Milshteyn says.

The company has already seen dramatic success in the lab. After treating ore samples with their formula, Transition increased copper recovery from 60% to 90%.

This increased efficiency can also reduce the amount of acid that mines spray onto their ore heaps. Active microbes already produce their own acid, allowing mines to dial back acid irrigation once the biomining process becomes self-driving. In lab tests, microbes treated with Transition’s formula began producing acid nearly three times faster. For mines that run through as much as 150,000 gallons of acid solution per minute, that improvement could mean huge savings. 

“Ultimately, you can get more metal faster, less expensively, and with the added benefit of reducing the downstream environmental liabilities,” Milshteyn says.

Milshteyn began his biotechnology career as a bench scientist analyzing the genomic makeup of microbes used in industrial applications. His introduction to biomining came when a mining company asked his team to explain why some of the mine’s ore heaps were producing 50% copper yields when the mine’s average yield was only 34%. Milshteyn, who had spent most of his career in sterile labs, remembers visiting the mine.

“There was a heap stacked 2,000 feet high, and you’re literally watching them move mountains,” he says. “It’s awe-inspiring.”

Milshteyn was fascinated by the challenge of managing “wild biology”, outside the laboratory. He was also struck by the opportunity to harness biology to reduce the environmental impact of mining. “If you could improve this process by 5%, by even 1%, that has a significant real-world impact,” he says.

Since founding Transition in 2023, Milshteyn has assembled an experienced team from both the worlds of biology research and the mining industry. The company’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Alex Shiluk, brings more than 10 years of operational experience in science, technology and impact, building scalable foundations for early-stage companies. Head of R&D Suzan Yilmaz, who trained as a civil and environmental engineer, has 15 years of experience in metagenomics research. Transition’s chief commercial officer, Vania Grandi, has 20 years of experience in the mining, metals, and sustainability industries.

Transition moved into Bakar Bio Labs to scale up research and development, drawn by our incubator’s robust facilities, backup equipment, and experienced lab operations team. “We were looking to move to a lab space with a mature level of support to unblock our science team and allow us to move at the speed that we needed to be going at,” Milshteyn says.

From laboratory to industry

Transition is currently building partnerships with mining companies in preparation for testing its product in leach columns at an industrial testing facility, which Milshteyn expects to begin in the first half of 2026. The company’s philosophy, he says, is to develop a product that’s easy to deploy at scale, seamlessly integrating into existing mining processes. “That’s been the driving principle behind how we think about what we can actually do,” Milshteyn says.

For Milshteyn, the key to Transition’s success is taking what billions of years of evolution has already created, and giving it a boost.

“These microbes are not doing this to get copper out of the ore, this is their way of living,” he says. “So instead of hammering biology into the system, we just want to get the biology that’s already there to work better.”

For more, check out this TechCrunch story about Transition.

A version of this story also appeared on the Bakar Bio Labs website.