Investigator Silver (ASX:IVR): A company with Australia’s only pure silver asset with a 93% IRR! And it just secured $55m to fund it!

Visit the website Investigator Silver (ASX:IVR) and you’ll see the declaration that the company is ‘Home of Australia’s Only Pure Silver Asset’. Sure, there are other companies on the ASX with exposure to silver, but plenty of them only have silver as a by-product.

Investigator’s Paris Project, which lies in South Australia’s Central Eyre Peninsula, only has silver. And the company just released its DFS and secured $55m in funding to help its cause.

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It is a good time to be in Silver

It is easy to dismiss silver as ‘Poor Man’s Gold’, but we think the current macroeconomic environment means it is a good time to be in silver. Industrial demand is expanding as electrification accelerates. Renewable energy deployment continues to scale globally, reinforcing silver’s indispensable role in solar manufacturing. Unlike many commodities tied to cyclical consumption, silver’s demand growth is increasingly policy-driven and structural.

At the same time, supply growth remains constrained. New large-scale discoveries are limited, capital discipline persists across mining companies, and environmental approval processes have become more rigorous. This dynamic creates a tightening balance between supply and demand — historically a precursor to sustained price appreciation.

From a portfolio perspective, silver offers diversification benefits as well as those similar to gold. During inflationary or currency-volatile periods, it has historically acted as a partial hedge. During growth cycles, it participates in industrial upside.

Investor positioning is also notable. Relative to historical peaks, broad institutional allocation to silver remains moderate. This suggests capacity for incremental capital inflows should macro or industrial catalysts accelerate.

As we stated, there are other listed companies with silver projects, but right now, only Investigator has a 100% silver project. And after several years, the project is at a DFS stage.

Putting in the hard yards

Investigator Silver (ASX:IVR) began as a diversified explorer, originally listed under a different commodity focus before pivoting to silver when the Paris deposit was first identified. The Company’s exploration team made the Paris silver discovery in 2011, marking a transformational moment for its portfolio and strategic direction. This discovery established Paris as a high-grade epithermal silver system in a jurisdiction historically underexplored for primary silver.

Following initial drilling success, the Paris resource underwent significant expansion through systematic exploration, with a key infill and extension drilling campaign in 2015 increasing confidence in the deposit and underpinning early resource estimates. Infill and regional drilling between 2016 and 2021 progressively expanded the resource base and elevated the classification of contained metal.

Over time, Investigator Silver completed a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) on the Paris Silver Project and released its results in November 2021. This early economic study demonstrated strong project fundamentals, including a pre-tax NPV of A$202–245m, an IRR of ~48–54%, and a low AISC around A$17.45/oz silver under the then-base case pricing assumptions. The PFS confirmed the project’s open-pit potential with straightforward metallurgy and modest capital intensity.

A major milestone arrived in July 2023, when Investigator Silver reported an updated mineral resource of 24 million tonnes @ 73 g/t silver and 0.41 % lead for 57 million ounces of silver and 99 kt of lead — a sizable upgrade from earlier estimates and a robust foundation for feasibility engineering.

Investigator Silver’s 2026 DFS

The March 2026 Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) firmly positioned the Paris Silver Project as one of the most compelling undeveloped silver assets in the market today. The Study outlines robust, high-margin economics across both spot and consensus pricing scenarios, underscoring the project’s resilience and leverage to silver.

Under the spot price case (US$80/oz silver), the Project delivered a pre-Tax NPV (8%): A$1.15 billion, an IRR of 93%. The payback was forecast to be 11 months from first production and the AISC was A$39.70/oz (US$27.39/oz)

Even under a more conservative consensus silver price assumption (US$60.18/oz), the economics remain exceptionally strong. The Pre-Tax NPV was A$618 million and the IRR 61%. The payback Period was 13 months and the AISC: ~A$39.70/oz. It did estimate that $260m in capex would be needed – more than the $55m raised this week, although it is a sign of confidence the company was able to raise it so quickly after the study was released.

Conclusion

Investigator Silver now holds 100% of one of Australia’s premier undeveloped primary silver assets, if not the premier. The March 2026 DFS is not the end of the journey, but is a major milestone, positioning Paris as a development-ready opportunity with strong leverage to silver demand fundamentals. The $55m raise puts the company in a good position, but it is inevitable that more will be needed to bring it into production.