Every once in a while a mining company releases a news announcement that makes you stop and look more closely.

This was one of them.

NovaRed's newest Strategic Advisor for Robotics and AI is Dr. Olamide Oladeji.

A quick look at his background shows:

• Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree
• Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholar
• PhD in Applied AI from Stanford
• Dual master's degrees from MIT
• MIT Clean Energy Prize winner
• Experience supporting institutions and governments in more than 20 countries
• Technology platforms used by over 200,000 businesses across 40+ countries

That is an unusually strong technology profile for a junior mining company.

What caught my attention

The mining sector is becoming increasingly dependent on data.

The ability to process geological, geophysical, satellite, and historical datasets efficiently could become a major differentiator.

My view

When a company starts attracting people with credentials like this, it is worth asking what they are building behind the scenes.

There is a bigger macro rotation happening that most retail is still ignoring

Canada has now helped unlock 12.1B in new critical-minerals project capital, with a total of 18.5B being mobilized through the Alliance framework

This is not just “supportive policy” anymore, it is capital flow acceleration into domestic mining supply chains

We are moving from:

• fragmented exploration funding
• structured national-scale capital allocation for critical minerals

What this changes:

The trade is shifting from “find a good drill result” - “be positioned where capital is being deployed”

Names positioned in this flow:

• FM
• LUN
• CS
• ERO
• ASCU
• KDK
• NRED / NREDF

Key takeaway:

This is no longer just a resource cycle, it is a capital deployment cycle tied to national supply security

This is something I've been thinking about recently.

Small-cap companies often take much longer to execute than investors expect.

A project gets delayed.

Financing takes longer.

Revenue growth doesn't arrive as quickly as planned.

At the same time, holding onto a weak investment for too long can become an expensive mistake.

Finding the balance between patience and knowing when to move on is probably one of the hardest parts of investing in small caps.

How do you personally decide when it's time to keep holding, average down, or finally exit a position?

One thing I've noticed when looking at small-cap companies is that investors often fall into two very different camps.

One group prefers businesses that are already generating profits, even if growth is slower and the upside may be more limited.

The other group is willing to accept higher risk and focus on companies that are growing rapidly but haven't yet proven they can consistently make money.

Both approaches have produced big winners over the years.

The challenge is figuring out which type of opportunity offers the better risk-reward balance in the current market environment.

If you had to choose, would you rather own a profitable small cap with steady growth or a fast-growing company that still has a lot to prove?

I've been trying to narrow down my small-cap watchlist and keep coming back to the same few names.

Rocket Lab (RKLB) continues to gain traction as one of the more established space companies outside of SpaceX.

D-Wave (QBTS) has been attracting attention from investors looking for exposure to quantum computing.

BigBear.ai (BBAI) remains one of the more discussed AI-related small caps despite the volatility.

Red Cat (RCAT) seems to be benefiting from growing interest in defense and drone technologies.

What's interesting is that all four companies operate in industries that could see major growth over the next decade, but their risk profiles are completely different.

If you had to choose only one of these and hold it for five years, which would you pick and why?

I've noticed that many successful investments felt uncomfortable at the time.

There was uncertainty, negative sentiment, or some reason why most investors were staying away.

If an opportunity looks obvious and risk-free, the market has usually already priced that in.

What's the most uncomfortable investment you've made that ended up working out?

Sometimes the biggest winners are the positions we nearly talked ourselves out of.

Maybe the stock looked risky.
Maybe the market hated it.
Maybe the timing felt wrong.

What's a trade or investment that you almost skipped but ended up being one of your better decisions?

Lately I've been researching a lot of long-term themes.

Energy security.

Critical minerals.

Infrastructure.

Manufacturing.

Artificial intelligence.

What's interesting is how often Canada appears somewhere in the chain.

Not always at the center of the story.

But often in places that seem increasingly important.

It makes me wonder whether Canadian companies could end up benefiting from trends that most investors currently associate with completely different sectors.

Canada has exposure to a lot of long-term themes.

Energy.

Critical minerals.

Infrastructure.

Agriculture.

Technology.

Financials.

If you had to pick one Canadian sector that you think will attract the most capital over the next 10 years, what would it be and why?