Mr. Colin Padget reports

FOUNDERS METALS COMMENCES 2024 DRILLING CAMPAIGN: DRILLS 10.0 M OF 24.61 G/T AU IN THE FROYO GOLD ZONE

Founders Metals Inc. has started its 2024 drilling campaign and provided drill core assay results from the Antino gold project in southeastern Suriname. The company reports a high-grade gold interval of 10.0 metres of 24.61 grams per tonne gold from resource infill/expansion-type drilling conducted in late 2023 within the Froyo gold zone. Founders is fully financed for an initial 2024 drill program of up to 30,000 metres.

Highlights:

• Drill hole 23FR036B intercepted 10.0 metres of 24.61 grams per tonne gold from 182 metres downhole.
• Drill hole 23FR035 intercepted 15.0 metres of 1.72 grams per tonne gold from 164 metres downhole.
• Both company-owned diamond drills are fully operational, with planning under way for the addition of a third drill.

Colin Padget, chief executive officer and president of Founders Metals, stated: "We are pleased to announce that our two company-owned diamond drills are now fully operational for 2024, enhancing our drilling efficiency and capacity. With our exploration program accelerating, we're happy to maintain fast lab turnaround times and anticipate a steady news flow of drill results every two to three weeks. The pending results from hole 45 are particularly exciting as, from visual observation, we expect them to contribute substantially to the parallel gold zone within the Froyo gold zone, further underlining our project's potential."

Founders Metals' 2024 drilling program is under way, deploying its two diamond drills for an extensive 30,000-metre campaign at the Antino gold project. The program focuses on expansion and resource definition within the Froyo gold zone coupled with exploration across previously uncharted concessions areas. This strategy aims to fortify the potential future resource base at Froyo and capitalize on the project's broader untapped potential. Initial drilling at Froyo focuses on the recently announced parallel gold zone, with drilling under way that tests this new zone further to depth and along strike.

Founders Metals will present at the Metals Investor Forum in Vancouver on Jan. 19, 2024, Jan. 20, 2024, and welcomes visitors to its booth during the event.

About Founders Metals Inc.

Founders Metals is a Canadian exploration company operating in North America and South America. The company is focused on acquiring and advancing gold projects in the South American Guiana Shield. Its flagship project is the 20,000-hectare Antino gold project in Suriname. Exploration work on the project includes over 30,000 metres of historical drilling, 35,000 gold-in-soil auger samples, propertywide aeromagnetic survey data and a 2022 lidar survey. Antino is the most advanced gold exploration project in Suriname; within an area where historical surface/alluvial gold mining has produced over 500,000 gold ounces to date.

Quality assurance and quality control

Reported intervals are core length and estimated to represent 85 per cent or more of the true width based on current drill data. Intervals are calculated using five-metre minimum widths, up to five-metre internal dilution and a 0.3-gram-per-tonne cut-off grade. Gold assays are uncapped in interval calculations as drilling is insufficient to determine capping levels for higher-grade gold intercepts.

Results from samples were analyzed at Filab Suriname, a Bureau Veritas certified laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname (a commercial certified laboratory under ISO 9001:2015). Samples are crushed to 75 per cent passing 2.35-millimetre screen, riffle split (700 grams) and pulverized to 85 per cent passing 88 micrometres. Samples were analyzed using a 50-gram fire assay (50-gram aliquot) with an atomic absorption (AA) finish. For samples that return assay values over 10.0 grams per tonne, another cut was taken from the original pulp and fire assayed with a gravimetric finish. Founders Metals inserts blanks and certified reference standards in the sample sequence for quality control. External QA/QC checks are performed at ALS Global Laboratories (geochemistry division) in Vancouver, Canada (an ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited facility). A secure chain of custody is maintained in transporting and storing of all samples. Drill intervals with visible gold are assayed using metallic screening. Rock-chip samples from outcrop/bedrock are selective by nature and may not be representative of the mineralization hosted on the project.

Qualified person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Michael Dufresne, MSc, PGeol, PGeo, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

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