Nevada-based junior gold explorer Ridgeline Minerals won the pitch battle during the Mines and Money Online Connect webinar series, hosted from August 31 to September 3.
The pitch battle involved five junior mining companies, who pitched a project of their choice to five investment judges. Each company had only three minutes to present their investment case, followed by seven minutes of questions from five potential investors and investment experts.
The overall winner was TSX-V-listed Ridgeline Minerals with its Carlin East, Selena and Swift projects in Nevada, in the US.
The pitch battle was judged by KWR Capital principal Emily King, Rock Elm Capital partner Karr McCurdy, Sector Investor Managers CEO Angelos Damaskos, Auramet Trading representative Mark Tyler and Asset Management Switzerland CIO Torsten Dennin.
The other contestants were Elemental Royalties Corporation MD Frederick Bell, Hammer Metals MD Dan Thomas, White Rock Minerals MD Matthew Gill and Geophysix CEO Robert Stewart.
Focusing on the winner’s pitch, Ridgeline CEO Chad Peters said Ridgeline Minerals was going to find “Nevada’s next gold discovery”.
He said the company’s management team had been responsible for several gold discoveries in Nevada over the past five to ten years and that the company’s focus on a partnership with its drilling contractor set it apart from its peers.
“I co-founded Ridgeline out of my garage in 2018 with the owner of a drill company – this guarantees [Ridgeline] access to drill rigs at a significant discount to market rates for three years or 50 000 ft of drilling, whichever comes first,” said Peters.
He added that, in a world where one is only as good as your last drill hole, Ridgeline's partnership with a drilling company provided it with a competitive drilling advantage over its peers.
“This enables us to put more metres into the ground with every dollar invested and significantly increases our chances of making a discovery early in the exploration cycle.”
However, Peters said the drilling advantage was not the only thing that set it apart from its competitors.
“We have a great share structure with over 48-million non-diluted shares, and 57-million fully diluted shares”.
He also pointed out that Ridgeline had a treasury of just under C$6-million after having completed an initial public offering on August 12. This meant that the company was fully funded for the remainder of the year, as well as into 2021 for exploration.
In addition, he said the company had a management team that was fully aligned with its shareholders.
“We own 17% of the company. I am the largest shareholder at just under 8%, and I went the first 14 months [from company inception] without a salary, followed by me putting C$150 000 into the company.” Peters added that Ridgeline was his only venture and that he was “committed to making a success of it”.
He outlined that Ridgeline had three projects in the Carlin, Nevada mountain trends. “We have high-grade potential at Carlin East and Swift projects – these are district-scale projects of 39 km2 and 51 km2 and they are directly adjacent to some of the biggest gold mines in North America.”
Peters noted that, going forward, Ridgeline had multiple catalysts over the next three months. “We are drilling 6 000 m across all three projects with multiple catalysts every two to three weeks, heading into November.”
In this regard, he said the company was looking to add value for its shareholders, through “doing this with a drill bit”.