German entrepreneur Joachim Ante made his name as cofounder and CTO of Unity — a video games developer that IPO-ed in 2020 at a whopping $13.7bn valuation.
Unity’s success made Ante and his fellow cofounders rich: Forbes estimates his net worth to be $1.5bn.
Now Ante is betting some of that wealth on a technology far from his video games past. Ante is the single LP behind VC fund Underground Ventures, which invests solely in geothermal energy: a source which taps the Earth’s subsurface for heat, unlocking clean and constant energy.
“Ante put $40m of his own money into this, because he really believes that this is the energy source of the future,” says Torsten Kolind, who runs Underground Ventures. “It’s a very bold move.”
Ante and Kolind have picked an opportune moment: the current US administration, although taking an antagonistic stance on renewable energy sources like wind and solar, has a soft spot for geothermal.
Trump’s energy darling
Kolind previously founded YouNoodle, a company which runs entrepreneurship competitions. He met Ante when they were both working in Silicon Valley.
The idea for Underground Ventures, which is based in Copenhagen, started when Ante brought Kolind a report on geothermal by the American nonprofit Clean Air Task Force. “He said: ‘Torsten, what do you think about geothermal? Why are we not looking at this?’”
Geothermal uses heat from the Earth’s subsurface to generate power. It’s currently used extensively in places like Iceland, where the country’s volcanic landscape makes the energy source easy to harness.
Underground was launched in 2024, just before Donald Trump came to power in the US for the second time, in what has proved to be a pivotal moment for the industry.
Geothermal fits Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra — extracting heat from the Earth’s subsurface involves extensive drilling, and many of the tools needed to do so overlap with those used by the oil and gas industries.
In April, the US’ Department of Energy included geothermal in a list of energy sources that will benefit from easier permitting processes, alongside natural gas and crude oil. The country’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, previously ran a company that invested in the tech.
Returns in 10 years?
Geothermal drilling sites can take years to get up and running. Despite that, Kolind is confident that the tech remains a VC bet.
“We’re used to co-investing with VCs that have a 10-year fund horizon, so we are thinking exactly the same way,” Kolind says, though adds that the benefit of having a family office is that you are not legally obliged to send returns to LPs within a certain period.
The key factor that will drive wider adoption of the energy source is cheaper drilling, he says, and many of the VC’s investments focus on tech they hope will do that.
“A very big unlock for this space is when the oil and gas industry decides that costs and risks are now at an acceptable enough level that they can pivot a substantial part of their assets into geothermal.”
Europe’s role
Underground has done five investments so far.
Three of Underground’s portfolio companies are based in Europe: Slovakian GA Drilling, which is working on tech to drill at any temperature and any depth; Dutch startup Canopus Drilling, which is working on a next-generation steel-tipped drill; and Swiss startup Borobotics, which is working on automating drilling
European geothermal innovation is spread out across the continent, Kolind says. Iceland continues to act as a test-bed for technologies, while areas with a link to the oil and gas industry — like the Netherlands and energy giant Shell — are starting to become hotspots for geothermal.
Technical universities, like ETH Zurich and the Technical University of Munich, are also centres of geothermal innovation.
Rise of the specified climate fund?
Underground is the only VC focused solely on geothermal tech. Kolind sees the fund’s ultra-focused thesis as an advantage amid a sea of funds focused broadly on climate tech.
“From the LP space, I do hear quite a lot of interest in specialised venture funds,” he says. “There are so many funds that look like each other that fight for the same top 1% of companies.” That said, Kolind acknowledges it’s a honed-in bet that carries a concentrated market.
Underground is not the only VC moving away from the generalised climate thesis. Nucleus Capital, which launched its fund at the end of 2024, invests in companies rethinking food or manufacturing using synthetic biology. As partner Maximilian Schwarz put it at the time: “A climate fund is way too generic.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/underground-ventures-geothermal-joachim-ante/
