Going global: following the majors into three new regions for $7M+ in new pipeline every quarter
A new commercial model made major mining companies the priority. Selling to them meant changing what we said, how we said it, and where in the world we showed up to say it.
VRIFYVP MarketingMay 2025 – Present5 min read- $7M+
- Added prospective pipeline per quarter
- 3
- New regions entered
- JuniorsMajors
- Primary segment
Context
VRIFY’s go-to-market had been built around junior exploration companies headquartered in North America and Australia. That made sense for the original model: juniors are numerous, decide quickly, and cluster in a few mining hubs.
The new commercial model changed the math. Major mining companies, with portfolios of assets and decades of data, became the most valuable accounts in the market. Our product works on a company’s existing data rather than on site, so geography was never a technical limit. The limit was our go-to-market, which had never been designed for this buyer or for the places they do business.
We expanded into South America, Western Europe and the Middle East, doubled down on Australia, and rebuilt the motion for majors at the same time.
The thesisThe right customer decides the map. When the commercial model pointed to majors, the go-to-market had to follow them wherever they operate, and speak to them the way they buy.
Juniors vs. majors
| Juniors | Majors | |
|---|---|---|
| Why they buy | Make a discovery and tell the story to investors to raise capital | Prioritize targets across a portfolio and get more from decades of data |
| Portfolio | One or a few projects | Many assets across countries |
| Who decides | CEO or founder, often with one geologist | A committee: exploration leadership, technical teams, data and procurement |
| Content that lands | Discovery stories, investor-ready visuals | Technical depth, portfolio-level ROI, results on their own data |
| Mediums | Inbound, digital, conference booths | Account plans, executive briefings, in-person meetings at global conferences |
| Footprint | Mostly North America and Australia | Global |
The two segments buy in fundamentally different ways. A junior explorer is often a founder-led company with one or two projects, able to decide quickly once convinced. A major has assets across several countries, decades of data and a buying committee spanning technical, procurement and executive teams.
That is why the expansion could not just be a longer target list. A junior buys VRIFY to make a discovery and tell that story to investors. A major buys it to decide where to spend across a whole portfolio. Different problem, different people, different proof.
Mapping the buying committee at a major
Each account plan named the people involved in the decision and what each one needed to believe.
- Cares about
- Where to spend next year’s exploration budget across the portfolio
- Message
- Rank your targets with every dataset you already own, across every asset
- Proof
- Results from peers and a pilot on one of their own assets
- Cares about
- Whether the model is sound enough to stake their name on
- Message
- Transparent methodology that extends their expertise rather than replacing it
- Proof
- Technical sessions, validation against known deposits
- Cares about
- Security, integration and fit with existing systems
- Message
- Works with the data and tools they already have
- Proof
- Security documentation and integration walkthroughs
- Cares about
- Risk, terms and vendor track record
- Message
- A low-risk path from pilot to wider rollout
- Proof
- Clear commercial terms and references
With a junior, winning one person is often enough. With a major, a single champion who cannot bring the rest of the committee along is a stalled deal. Mapping the committee told us who needed which message, and made sure no one heard about VRIFY for the first time in a procurement review.
The majors motion
The motion for majors is slower and more deliberate than the junior funnel, by design. It starts with a written plan for each account and a map of the committee, and the first real conversation usually happens face to face at a major conference or in an executive briefing.
The goal of the first deal is not size; it is proof. A pilot on one asset, done well, becomes the internal case for the next asset, which is where the real value of a major sits.
What changed
- Account plans for every majorEach target major got a written plan covering its assets, exploration priorities, buying committee and the best moment to engage.
- Different contentLess discovery storytelling, more technical depth and portfolio-level value: how VRIFY helps decide where to drill across many assets, not just one.
- Different mediumsBroad digital reach gave way to executive briefings, tailored materials for each stakeholder, and meetings booked ahead of the conferences majors attend.
- A global event calendarAdded major international conferences including Future Minerals Forum (FMF), Latin Rocks, IMARC and Precious Metals Summit Zurich, each planned with the same pre-event ABM and follow-up as our North American events.
The common thread is that the channels that worked for juniors, such as high-volume digital and booth traffic, were the wrong tools for a major. The shift was toward fewer, deeper touches with more people at each account, and toward meeting them in person in the regions where they work.
Where we went
| Region | Why it mattered | How we showed up |
|---|---|---|
| South America | Some of the world’s largest mining jurisdictions, with major assets across the region | Latin Rocks and in-region meetings with exploration teams |
| Middle East | A fast-growing mining agenda backed by significant national investment | Future Minerals Forum (FMF) and executive meetings around it |
| Western Europe | Home to the head offices where many majors make portfolio decisions | Precious Metals Summit Zurich, plus executive briefings with head-office exploration and technical leaders |
| Australia (doubled down) | An existing market, and one of the largest concentrations of majors and mining capital in the world | A bigger presence at IMARC, with meetings planned around it |
Australia was already part of our footprint; with majors as the priority, we invested more heavily there rather than treating it as a junior market. Each new region was chosen because major mining companies either operate significant assets there or make decisions from there. Events were the entry point in every case, because a conference is the one place where a buying committee from a global company is reliably in the same city at the same time.
Results
The expansion added more than $7M in prospective pipeline every quarter, from accounts and regions that were largely untouched before.
Almost every one of those opportunities traced back to an in-person moment: a meeting at a global conference, a hosted dinner, or an executive briefing. The automation and content got us into the room. The room is where the deals started.
For a company that had sold mostly to juniors in North America, this was a new market opened on top of the existing one, not a replacement for it. The junior motion kept running, and the majors motion added a second, higher-value engine alongside it.
In the age of AI, human connection still converts better than anything else. AI builds the marketing mesh and the flywheel draws buyers in, but the in-person meeting is still what turns a prospect into a client.