Underground Ventures
Venture capitalPre-Seed–Series A · 7 people tracked
Investment thesis
Underground Ventures invests in next-generation geothermal and reliable energy technologies, viewing dependable energy as fundamental to geopolitics and prosperity. The team combines deeptech engineering expertise and startup-building experience to back and support founders in the energy transition, providing portfolio support on governance and financing strategy.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 2, 2026.
Team · 7 people
from the firm's websiteTrained as a biotech engineer, Torsten co-founded YouNoodle, a large startup evaluation platform, and is a long-time angel investor in women's health. He co-founded Underground Ventures out of a belief that reliable energy underpins geopolitics and prosperity.
With a background spanning energy policy in Paris, commodity trading in Geneva, and venture capital in Amsterdam, Thomas leads investments at UGV and supports portfolio companies on governance and financing strategy.
Advisor and investor at UGV, co-founder and former CTO of Unity Technologies.
Investment advisor to UGV, Director at JA Technologies and a former partner at Grant Thornton.
Industry advisor to UGV, a Senior Analyst at the International Energy Agency and former Head of US Energy Transition at Shell.
A mechanical engineer with about a decade in R&D at SLB, Soraya worked on drilling tool design, well integrity, and physics-informed ML, later spending time at Entrepreneur First and ENGIE on deep geothermal. At UGV she works on investments and portfolio support.
Advisor to UGV serving as Program Director of Superhot Rock Energy at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF).
Investments · 5 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBuilds autonomous drilling robots to scale ground-source heat pumps by reducing cost, space, and carbon emissions for geothermal energy.
Creates directional steel shot drilling systems for steered drilling and branched boreholes from shallow heat exchangers to deep geothermal.
Pioneers deep hard-rock drilling technologies including dynamic sensing systems and plasma drilling for superhot temperatures.
Develops measurement-while-drilling tools that operate in superhot geothermal environments at temperatures above 210°C.
Builds downhole completion tools and flow control devices for superhot temperature environments to increase well productivity.
Frequently asked questions
- What stage does Underground Ventures invest at?
- Underground Ventures invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.
- What is Underground Ventures's typical check size?
- Underground Ventures typically writes checks of $500K – $2M.
- What sectors does Underground Ventures focus on?
- Underground Ventures focuses on Cleantech, Climate Tech, Deep Tech, Energy.
- Does Underground Ventures lead rounds?
- Yes, Underground Ventures leads investment rounds.
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