When we founded ProspEx Group, we had a clear mission: to unlock access to one of the most powerful yet historically underutilised asset classes, mining royalties.
For decades, mining royalties have remained the domain of either public royalty companies or a small group of well-connected insiders, often negotiated through private, off-market deals and held tightly across generations. While that model has delivered significant returns for those within it, it has effectively excluded the broader investment community even experienced and sophisticated investors.
As we developed the ProspEx platform, one question kept coming up:
“Why would someone want to hold a mining royalty instead of buying shares?”
To me, the answer has always been simple:
“Why be paid last when you could be paid first?”
Royalty holders enjoy priority in cash flows and are protected from dilution, even across multiple funding rounds. Unlike shareholders, they receive a fixed percentage of revenue from the mine’s output, regardless of the company's capital structure or share performance. In the resources sector, royalties have long been the prized asset, unmatched in their ability to generate passive, inflation-hedged income.
Consider one of the most famous royalty deals in Australian history, the 1960s Hope Downs agreement, where Lang Hancock and Peter Wright negotiated with Rio Tinto not for equity, but for a 2.5% royalty over revenue in perpetuity. The wealth created from that single contract is legendary and while we many never see one of that magnitude ever again, it makes perfect sense that this is an asset class that has serious need for democratisation.
Our research shows that roughly half of ASX-listed mining companies are already engaged in royalty activity across their tenements. Strikingly, over 70% of those royalties are held by private parties. The lack of public access isn’t due to lack of issuance, or investor interest. It's due to structural barriers (that ProspEx is breaking down):
- High minimum investment thresholds
- Complex legal frameworks
- Minimal visibility into royalty opportunities
- Limited liquidity or secondary markets
At ProspEx, we’re solving that problem. We’ve built a digital platform that simplifies, standardises, and opens up access to the mining royalty asset class. By working directly with miners and brokers to issue royalties, and with wealth managers, SMSFs, family offices and sophisticated investors to participate in these offerings, we bridge both sides of the market.
Our innovation is the Digital Syndicated Royalty™ (DSR™), a legally enforceable, fractionalised interest in an underlying royalty agreement. A DSR™ can be offered alongside or stapled to an equity raise, giving mining companies the ability to raise non-dilutive capital while inviting their existing investor base to participate.
For the first time, Australian miners can issue royalties digitally and at scale, with the same ease as raising equity. And soon, with the development of our secondary market functionality, mining companies will be able to buy back royalty positions incrementally, creating even more flexibility and value over time.
While we are rooted in mining finance, at our core, we are a technology company. We don’t take positions in the royalties, we provide the infrastructure to power the market. Our goal is to evolve this space from opaque and illiquid to transparent, accessible, and dynamic.
We believe mining royalties represent more than just a compelling investment they are the future of real asset investing and potentially even the new Australian dream, as millennials and younger continue to be priced out of the property market. For those looking to move beyond traditional asset classes like shares, bonds, and property, or for miners and royalty holders seeking new paths to liquidity and capital, ProspEx creates the bridge.
Grounded in trust, built for scale, and designed for the next generation of investors, we’re proud to be unlocking this powerful asset class together.
