The dynamics of mine development show interesting parallels with tech, actually.
Lots of mines start from little companies searching for a possible ore body (the idea or market fit), then raising money to perform a closer survey (seed funding). If the closer geological work is promising they often obtain a lease (patents or other IP).
At this point it goes one of two ways. Either they raise enough money to start and operate the mine themselves (series A, B etc, leading to an IPO) or they sell the prospect to a major company.
Then the newly-minted millionaires, who know a lot about mining, invest in the next crop of junior miners.
So as with tech there are conceptual, exploratory, growth and liquidity phases, followed by a process of reinvestment.
I remember realising this when living in Perth and being frustrated that, with quite literally billions of dollars sloshing around the city looking to invest, you'd be hard-pressed to pitch anything smarter than a brochureware website to the local investment class.
There were other structural problems. Stock options are not A Thing for various legal reasons. Failure in starting a high-risk business is a bit of a black mark. There are VCs but so much of their money came from governments trying to jump-start a market that they were about as risk-taking as a loans officer at a bank (what government wants "10 MILLION WASTED ON PHONE APPS" as a headline?).
Meanwhile the super funds are collectively sitting on trillions of dollars[0] and investing an absurdly dumb fraction of it in the ASX. Putting just 0.5% of their holdings into VC would unlock tens of billions of dollars of potential investments.
For which, hey, VCs who lurk here and want to raise a fund: go talk to the Australian superannuation industry. It is a massive pool of underperforming cash languishing in the same dozen public companies and, because Australian law forces all Australians to set aside at least 9.5% of income for retirement, the industry will never stop having incoming funds. There will always be new money to raise[1] and it will probably the 2nd largest pool of pension investments sometime in the next 10-15 years.
I will accept finder's fees and/or massively remunerative job offers as reward for this insight.
And much less apologetic about wielding power.