A.R.I. Receives Full Early Repayment on Senior Secured Credit Facility to Canadian Rare-Earth Minerals Company

Successful exit highlights the strength of the proprietary A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™

Applied Real Intelligence (“A.R.I.”), a leading provider of growth credit and venture debt to North American innovators, announced today that it has received the full and early repayment of a senior secured loan extended to a Canadian rare-earths junior miner.

The successful investment underscores A.R.I.’s disciplined risk-management culture and highlights the strength of the proprietary A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™ – Senior, Secured, Structured, Small, Short, Scalable, Strategic.

Developed by A.R.I.’s Founder and Managing General Partner, Zack Ellison, MBA, MS, CFA, CAIA, the investment system draws on two decades of experience across global underwriting, trading, and portfolio management roles at five publicly traded financial institutions, including three with more than $1 trillion in assets.

The early repayment further strengthens A.R.I.’s momentum as it prepares to announce the first external growth-capital investment ever raised by one of Canada’s premier consumer brands.

Today’s announcement follows the firm’s most recent press release on October 2, 2025, which highlighted a 26% cash return on deployed capital in 2024 with zero losses since inception.

The successful exit further reinforces A.R.I.’s Canadian capabilities, disciplined structuring, and safety-first underwriting philosophy at a time when many private credit managers are experiencing rising defaults and operational pressures across their portfolios as a result of weak diligence and underwriting over the last few years.

Strengthening North America’s Rare-Earth Supply Chain Through Safe, Structured Credit

Global rare-earth supply remains heavily concentrated in China, underscoring the need for a secure North American supply chain. Rare earths are critical to some of the most strategically important technologies in the global economy, including electric vehicles, defense systems, energy infrastructure, and advanced electronics. With North American capacity still limited, financing for early-stage operators remains scarce and often prohibitively expensive.

A.R.I.’s credit facility supported the borrower’s initial scaling efforts during a period of significant operational development. The early payoff reflects improved liquidity and operational progress at the borrower level. It also validates A.R.I.’s underwriting discipline, which emphasized robust collateral coverage, multi-layered lender protections, and short duration from the outset.

“Rare earths is a technically demanding sector that requires deep domain expertise, conservative deal engineering, and disciplined risk controls,” said Ellison. “This early repayment demonstrates how A.R.I.’s rigorous underwriting and thoughtful structural design can make even complex categories safe, predictable, and well protected for our investors.”

The A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™ – A Proprietary Framework for Principal Protection

A.R.I.’s credit philosophy is anchored in the A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™, a systemized framework designed to generate strong, predictable results across market cycles. The seven pillars include:

1. Senior — A.R.I. invests at the top of the capital structure, ensuring first-position rights to cash flows, assets, and remedies to maximize recovery potential.
2. Secured — A.R.I. lends against perfected, all-asset collateral packages to preserve value and protect principal across market cycles.
3. Structured — A.R.I. engineers every investment with robust lender protections, including covenants, cash controls, information rights, and early-warning triggers, to proactively manage risk.
4. Small — A.R.I. sizes each facility conservatively relative to liquidity, collateral, revenue, and enterprise value to limit loss severity and concentration risk.
5. Short — A.R.I. originates short-duration, floating-rate loans with protective floors to minimize duration risk and enable rapid capital rotation, frequent repricing, and limited credit drift.
6. Scalable — A.R.I. finances companies positioned for sustained growth, allowing the firm to increase exposure to outperformers and capture equity-linked upside as they expand.
7. Strategic — A.R.I. serves as an aligned strategic partner, providing operational guidance, board-level insight, disciplined oversight, and targeted network access to unlock sustainable growth.

“Ultimately, the A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™ is the distillation of decades of lessons learned from the world’s top financial institutions and fixed income investors,” said Ellison. “It’s a disciplined approach designed to protect the downside while delivering safe access to the extraordinary upside created by innovation. It reflects what works, and just as importantly, what does not.”

Built for Companies That Want More Than Capital

A.R.I. has become a preferred partner for leading innovators across the U.S. and Canada who seek growth credit that preserves ownership while enabling operational scale. The firm is increasingly serving Canadian companies across key segments that benefit from A.R.I.’s structured approach and deep strategic support, including consumer brands, entertainment, sports, technology, and critical materials.

Through the “Strategic” pillar of the A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™, portfolio companies receive more than financing:

• Cross-border structuring and expansion support
• Commercial introductions and revenue partnerships
• Senior-team guidance and board-level insight
• Operational, go-to-market, and brand-building support

This value-added, relationship-driven model is a cornerstone of A.R.I.’s long-term vision to finance innovation safely while helping U.S. and Canadian companies scale responsibly and sustainably.

About Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.)

Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.) is a leading private credit investment platform providing senior secured growth credit and venture debt to innovation-driven companies across North America. The firm’s proprietary A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™ – Senior, Secured, Structured, Small, Short, Scalable, Strategic – guides the firm’s investment decisions and underpins its disciplined, safety-first philosophy for financing innovation.

Zack Ellison, MBA, MS, CFA, CAIA, is the Founder and Managing General Partner of A.R.I. and Chief Investment Officer of the A.R.I. Senior Secured Growth Credit Fund. He has more than 20 years of global capital markets experience, including roles as an underwriter, investment banker, corporate bond trader, and fixed income portfolio manager across five publicly traded financial institutions, including Thomson Reuters, Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial, and Deutsche Bank. Learn more at www.arivc.com.

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“The A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™ is the distillation of decades of lessons learned from the world’s top financial institutions and fixed-income investors.” — Zack Ellison, Founder & Managing General Partner of A.R.I.