Using his background in biology, Eric Herrera brews up proteins in his lab that can dissolve rocks. His goal? Make harvesting valuable metals easier on miners—and the environment. The idea came to him in 2022, while on an Explorers Club expedition in the Arctic Circle. There, Herrera, who served for two years in the Navy as a medical scientist, encountered iron-eating bacteria that survived by secreting chemicals that could melt minerals, leaving behind the iron for the bacteria to absorb. Soon, he launched Maverick, based in San Francisco, which uses the same organic proteins to extract oil and minerals at scale without harmful chemicals or high-pressure systems. “Simply put, we break rocks and take out all the goodies,” Herrera says. With Maverick, companies don’t even need to dig a traditional mine. Instead, they simply drill a small hole, pump the proteins and bring the liquefied elements up as if they were water. “What we’re left with is a soup of critical elements, and we separate them,” he says. In 2025, Maverick raised a $19 million seed round led by Olive Tree Capital with participation from Y Combinator.
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