Western Australian minerals explorer and developer Dreadnought Resources will be out for institutional investor dollars on Monday morning, keen to lure them in with a bunch of recent discoveries.

Having mostly tapped its high-net-worth backers for 11 raisings since its ASX debut in 2019, Dreadnought’s understood to have set its sights on the institutional investor market and deep-pocketed funds that can help turn the $340 million small cap into the next $1 billion-plus critical minerals play.

Broker sources said Dreadnought boss Dean Tuck had brokers Canaccord Genuity and Shaw and Partners laying the groundwork over the weekend, and were testing fund manager appetite for a $20 million raising at about 10¢ a share.

While the details were to be finalised on Sunday night, funds raised would be piled into Dreadnought’s expanding drilling program, which has centred on its three major projects, all in Western Australia.

The most topical is Mangaroon, next door to ASX-listed Hastings Technology Metals’ Yangibana, where Dreadnought has had positive results from surface sampling at its Yin site and hopes to develop a rare earths mine.

Its other projects include Taraji-Yampi, a copper/gold site in WA’s Kimberley region, and Central Yilgarn north of Kalgoorlie where the company has 14 tenements and an eye for iron ore.

The one thing investors can bank on is a steady news flow from the busy driller. It’s a point of pride for the company’s board that it had issued 229 market-sensitive announcements from the time it listed until its most recent annual report, at a run rate of 1.2 per week, which are the sort of stats that would make a listed blue-chip blush.

Dreadnought Resources finished last week at 11¢ a share, which was their highest close since December. The group had $8.5 million cash in the bank as of September 30, according to its most recent quarterly filing.

Importantly, the price is expected to be at a premium to its most recent raising - a $12 million deal at 6¢ last August. That deal, also via Canaccord and Shaw, was to accelerate infill and extend drilling at its 100 per cent owned Mangaroon Rare Earth Project.