Which institutional investors and venture funds have disclosed stakes in KoBold Metals and Critical Metals Corp in filings or press releases?
Executive summary
KoBold Metals has publicly disclosed a long list of institutional investors and prominent venture backers across multiple press reports and funding announcements—most notably Durable Capital Partners, T. Rowe Price funds, Andreessen Horowitz Growth, BOND Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and other strategic investors—while Critical Metals Corp.’s January 15, 2026 press release confirms a $35 million PIPE with “a fundamental institutional investor” but does not name the party in that release [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. KoBold Metals: the named institutional and venture backers in reporting
Public reporting around KoBold’s large rounds and filings repeatedly names a mix of blue‑chip institutional managers and venture/strategic backers: the Series C was reported as co‑led by Durable Capital Partners and T. Rowe Price funds, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz Growth, BOND Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Bill Gates’ fund), Earthshot Ventures, Equinor, July Fund, Mitsubishi, Standard Investments, StepStone and WCM Investment Management, among others [1] [3] [2]. Earlier TechCrunch reporting that relied on filings described prior rounds and high‑profile individual backers such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, and listed Andreessen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy among prior investors [5]. Additional commercial profiles and databases echo the same roster of institutional and venture investors, and trade pieces note strategic partnerships with majors such as BHP and Rio Tinto in project work—though database profiles are paywalled and summarize earlier disclosures [6] [7].
2. Critical Metals Corp.: what the company disclosed in its press release
Critical Metals Corp.’s GlobeNewswire release dated January 15, 2026, publicly announced a $35 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) “with a fundamental institutional investor,” and framed the transaction as validation for the company’s Tanbreez project, but the release did not identify the investor by name within the text provided in the source [4]. The filing-style language and headline confirm the existence and magnitude of the institutional stake, but the single press release in the provided reporting stops short of naming the institutional investor or providing a detailed ownership percentage in that announcement [4].
3. What the filings and press reports actually show — and what they don’t
Multiple sources reporting on KoBold cite company announcements, funding round closes and regulatory filings that list participating investors; those sources explicitly name institutional managers and venture firms [1] [2] [5]. By contrast, the Critical Metals disclosure in GlobeNewswire is itself a press release describing a securities purchase agreement and calling the counterparty “a fundamental institutional investor,” which legally and practically can be accurate while still withholding the investor’s identity from public releases; the provided material does not include a named institutional investor or a corresponding SEC filing in the excerpts reviewed [4]. Therefore, the public trail within the supplied reporting allows confident attribution of the parties who publicly participated in KoBold rounds, while for Critical Metals the reporting documents the PIPE and its size but not the investor’s identity.
4. Reading motives and hidden agendas in the coverage
Reports on KoBold emphasize marquee names—Gates, Bezos, a16z, T. Rowe Price—not only to signal validation for KoBold’s technology but also because naming high‑profile backers helps the company and media frame the narrative of legitimacy and momentum for critical‑minerals investing [5] [2]. Conversely, Critical Metals’ decision (as reflected in the GlobeNewswire release) to describe the buyer as “a fundamental institutional investor” without naming it may reflect confidentiality in PIPE negotiations or a staged disclosure strategy designed to complete financing quickly while preserving negotiation leverage; the press release presents the financing as validation but omits the typical investor granularity that would let the market fully assess strategic alignment [4].
5. Bottom line and reporting limits
In the material provided, KoBold Metals has publicly disclosed—and reporters have repeatedly named—a wide roster of institutional and venture backers including Durable Capital, T. Rowe Price funds, Andreessen Horowitz Growth, BOND Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Earthshot Ventures, Equinor, Mitsubishi, StepStone and WCM Investment Management among others [1] [3] [2] [5]. Critical Metals Corp.’s January 15, 2026 press release confirms a $35 million PIPE from “a fundamental institutional investor” but the supplied release does not identify that investor by name or provide further ownership detail in the excerpts available [4]. The assertion of specific stakes therefore rests on named participation in KoBold’s announced rounds and on the unnamed institutional counterparty described by Critical Metals’ press release; where underlying SEC or definitive filings naming exact ownership percentages are not included in the supplied sources, that absence is noted rather than assumed away [1] [4].