Munich-based Hades, which aims to mine geothermal energy and critical minerals to help bolster Europe’s energy sovereignty, has raised €5.5m in pre-seed funding led by Project A.
The need for critical minerals such as lithium is increasing owing to the boom in AI and car electrification, but the EU is currently almost entirely dependent on imports from countries like China and Turkey for certain critical raw minerals.
Max Werner, cofounder and CEO at Hades, says the presence of hard rock across Europe has made it more challenging and expensive to access minerals and energy. He says that “50%-70%” of the cost of a typical mining project in Europe is just the drilling cost. “That is absolutely insane,” Werner says.
Hades is building a drilling system and other proprietary technologies to provide faster and more affordable access to critical minerals and geothermal energy in Europe.
“This project, in the end, is nothing other than an extension of a defence project […] Europe needs to grow up and become more independent,” Werner, who served in the German Armed Forces and as previously a defence startup founder, tells Sifted, adding that he believes the European defence industry will need a Europe-controlled supply chain.
God of the underworld
The name for Hades comes from the Greek god of the underworld — a baleful name but one that Werner says has positive connotations in mining. “Yes, it is the Greek god of death as well,” he says. But Hades is also the god of mining and was prayed to whenever there was a project, Werner says. “We just really think this fits the narrative.”
It’s not just Hades; VCs have shown increased interest in mining startups recently. Hades was started about two months ago, and Werner says it received its first term sheet in less than a week. The round was “massively oversubscribed,” he says.
Other VCs in the round include Visionaries Club’s deeptech arm, Visionaries Tomorrow, and Founders Factory, a London-based company builder which recently partnered with mining giant Rio Tinto on an accelerator. Quantum Systems’s cofounder Florian Seibel, RobCo founder Roman Hölzl and Lilium cofounder Daniel Wiegand participated as angels.
Up to 90% of the new funding will go into tech development, Werner says. A small portion will be used for exploration, to find the location for the company’s first big operation project, which will be in geothermal energy.
Hades’s founding team also includes Björn Dressler, who recently left his role of chief operating officer at German rocket maker Isar Aerospace. The whole team is just five people, but Werner says it aims to grow to 10 in the next six months and 20 in the next year.
‘We are not a technology company’
Hades will make money by selling geothermal energy to local communities, or by selling the critical minerals to industry or exchanges such as the London Metal Exchange.
But Werner says for the next year it will focus on tech development, while the year after it will likely be going through an approval process and licensing for its first geothermal power plant drilling project.
“We are not a technology company, we are not selling technology. We are ultimately providing these commodities,” Werner says, arguing there have been cases in recent years of successful startups that have been upgrading an existing industry or injecting disruptive technology into it that changes the fundamental unit economics of the model (he points to US manufacturing startup Hadrian as one example).
Mining has been a touchy subject in Europe, particularly in areas of Germany like the Rhine Valley, where believed lithium reserves have sparked both a race to extract them and concerns among locals of damage and tremors. Werner says it’s important to be upfront: “We don’t want to label the company as ‘sustainable energy’, we want to be transparent,” he says.
“If we really want to be resilient, we ultimately need to mine again. And that doesn’t mean that we need to create a new Rhine Valley — that is horrible. We do it with modern technologies […] as sustainably as possible.”
Update, August 20, 2025: This article has been updated to specify that it was Visionaries Club’s deeptech arm, Visionaries Tomorrow, that invested.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/hades-fundraise-mining-critical-minerals-europe/
