Like Franco-Nevada, Wheaton Precious Metals and Osisko Gold Royalties, Sandstorm Gold makes financial investments in the mining industry in exchange for volumetric production payments or royalties in the forms of net smelter returns and precious metals streaming contracts.

[5] The company was incorporated as Sandstorm Resources Ltd on March 23, 2007, and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Nolan Watson had been the chief financial officer of Wheaton Precious Metals which had pioneered the use of volumetric production payments in the gold mining industry and, along with co-worker David Awram, sought to spin off that business model into a separate company.

The company used the funds raised from the public stock offerings to negotiate the terms of the streaming contracts.

[11] Further acquisitions included Mariana Resources Ltd for their 30% interest in the Hot Maden gold-copper project in Artvin, Turkey.