C$1.44 Million Raised as First Lithium Closes Its Second LIFE Tranche

The Salar de Ascotan is a salt flat in Chile's Antofagasta Region, and First Lithium Minerals Corp. has been mapping what may lie in the brine beneath it. On October 29, 2026, the company closed a second tranche of financing that adds money to that work and to a gold project in northwestern Ontario.

The release, issued on Newsfile that day, put the gross proceeds at C$1,442,144. Counting the C$1,781,948 first tranche of its July offering, closed on July 22, First Lithium has now closed about C$3.2 million of new equity since midsummer.

Two projects, one of them on a Chilean salt flat

First Lithium is a Toronto-based exploration company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under FLM. It has two projects, Ascotan in Chile and Lidstone in Ontario.

Ascotan is the lithium project. The company holds about 6,400 hectares of mining concessions there after the expansion it announced on August 26, 2026.

Lithium at Ascotan would come from brine, salty groundwater that carries dissolved lithium and is pumped to surface rather than dug out as rock. Two property-wide geophysical surveys have produced a preliminary model of where that brine sits. In the August 26 release, the company said the model shows a brine signature that strengthens from about 200 metres below surface and reaches bedrock at about 600 metres.

Selective brine samples returned up to 1,299.5 milligrams of lithium per litre. The company itself states that these samples may not represent the broader salar.

Lidstone is the gold project, 10,674 hectares of claims, per the October 29 release, in northwestern Ontario aimed at gold and critical metals. In the interim MD&A for the period ended June 30, 2026, the company said it plans geologic mapping there in the second half of 2026, subject to financing, weather and permitting.

Rob Saltsman, the president and chief executive, framed the August staking as broadening the project area in support of the company's long-term exploration and development goals. Two of the new concessions adjoin the ground the company has marked as its priority drill targets, so the land package around those targets is now contiguous.

The October 29 closing in its parts

The second tranche had three pieces, and they behave differently.

A LIFE offering is a financing made under the listed issuer financing exemption in Part 5A of National Instrument 45-106, which lets a listed company sell shares to the public without a prospectus and without a four-month hold, so the buyers' shares trade from the day they are issued. A flow-through share is a share that passes the company's Canadian exploration tax deduction to the buyer, who pays a higher price for it. A warrant is a right to buy one more share at a fixed price before a set date.

After the cash finder's fees, the tranche that closed on October 29, 2026 leaves about C$1.38 million, before the company's other costs. The release's two components add to C$1,442,185, which is C$41 above its headline figure of C$1,442,144.

Where each dollar is directed

The money comes with instructions, and the instructions come from the company's own September 16 release launching the offering.

The flow-through proceeds, C$326,000 in this tranche, must be spent on eligible Canadian exploration at Lidstone. The company committed to incur those expenses by December 31, 2027, and to renounce them to the buyers effective no later than December 31, 2026. That money cannot be moved to Chile.

The non-flow-through proceeds go to exploration drilling and brine sampling at Ascotan, with the rest to working capital and general corporate purposes.

In the June 30 MD&A, the company said it expects to start a 1,500-metre exploration drilling programme at Ascotan within the next year, and put its cost at US$3.0 million.

The August 26 release placed that programme in the 2026/27 exploration season. Both documents set the same conditions: access to capital, government permits and licences, and agreements with local communities.

A drill programme is the step that turns a geophysical model into measured brine. The surveys show where the conductive, salty water is likely to be; a drill hole samples it at depth, measures its lithium content and shows how readily it flows. That is the stage Ascotan is being financed toward.

Lithium prices have moved in the brine producers' favour

Ascotan sits in the same region as the Salar de Atacama, where Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (NYSE: SQM) produces lithium from brine. SQM reported on August 18, 2026 that its average realized lithium price in the second quarter was about US$21.8 a kilogram at its Chilean operation, close to 160 per cent higher than a year earlier, and said it expected prices to remain relatively stable in the third quarter.

The comparison has a clear limit. SQM is a producer with a decades-old operation and processing plants; First Lithium is an explorer that has not yet drilled its salar. What the price does show is the market the Ascotan work is aimed at, and a stronger lithium price is the condition under which explorers have been able to raise money for brine drilling.

The balance sheet the money lands on

The June 30 figures show why the July and October closings mattered.

At June 30, 2026, First Lithium reported cash of C$396,772 and a working capital deficit of C$165,695, according to the interim MD&A. Its cash had been C$930,630 at December 31, 2025.

Of its current liabilities, C$515,546 at June 30, 2026 was owed to related parties, mainly management fees and expense reimbursements, non-interest-bearing and due on demand.

Over the six months ended June 30, 2026 the company spent C$295,328 on mineral exploration and reported a net loss of C$619,907.

The company's own explanation is in the MD&A's risk factors: there is no assurance that new capital will become available, and without it the company may have to curtail or cease operations. The July and October closings followed that statement. The June 30 figures come before the July 22 and October 29 closings, so they do not include either.

Dilution is the price of that money.

The interim MD&A dated July 10, 2026 reported 96,380,286 shares outstanding. The July 22 closing issued 15,844,982 units and the October 29 closing 12,320,469, per the company's releases, which brings the total to 124,545,737, the figure on the CSE listing record read October 30, 2026.

The October units are about 9.9 per cent of the enlarged company.

Each unit also carried half a warrant at C$0.18, about 6.16 million warrants in all, alongside the finder's warrants. If they were exercised, the company would receive more money and issue more shares.

A geologist joins the board

Two days before the closing, on October 27, the company named Deepak Varshney a director. The release describes him as a professional geologist with more than 15 years in mineral exploration and development, the chief executive and a director of Formation Metals, and someone who has raised more than C$75 million for exploration companies over the past three years. He replaces Ernest Mast, a director since 2021, who stepped down for other business commitments and remains an advisor.

For a company whose next step is a funded drill programme, a director who has both run exploration and raised money for it brings directly relevant experience.

The first Ascotan hole is the next step

First Lithium's shares also trade in Frankfurt under the symbol X28, WKN A3DQXP and ISIN CA32072L1094, as shown on Deutsche Börse's instrument page read on October 30, 2026, and the company's releases carry the same FSE symbol.

Trading on the home market is light. 13,000 shares had traded on the CSE by midday on October 30, about 0.21 times the 30-day average, per QuoteMedia's 15-minute delayed data.

The company has not yet set a date for the first hole at Ascotan, and the drill programme still needs its permits, its community agreements and the rest of its US$3.0 million. Only the non-flow-through proceeds count toward that Ascotan estimate, because the C$326,000 flow-through portion is committed to Lidstone.

With two closings raising about C$3.2 million gross since July, a larger concession package and a new geologist on its board, First Lithium has moved closer to funding the 1,500-metre programme it plans for the 2026/27 season.