The global push for electrification, clean energy, and industrial resilience depends on one thing: access to the subsurface.

The raw materials that power batteries, grids, and renewable energy systems all lie underground.

And the technologies used to reach those resources have changed far less than the industries that depend on them.

That gap is exactly what Hades Mining is trying to close.

Founded in 2025 by Max Werner, Björn Dressler and Dan Gengenbach, Hades describes itself as the world’s first tech-enabled extraction company — a company not just developing better drilling technology, but building an entirely new model for how resources are accessed, developed, and scaled.

And if it succeeds, the implications could reach far beyond mining, into geothermal energy, industrial infrastructure, and strategic resource independence.

For Max Werner, CEO and Co-Founder, that gap revealed something fundamental.

“If you look closely, many of the things society says it wants: clean energy, resilient supply chains, electrification, all depend on access to the subsurface.” 

He adds, “Yet the technologies used to reach that subsurface have improved far too slowly. Drilling remains expensive, slow, and operationally painful, especially in hard rock. That felt like a foundational bottleneck hiding in plain sight.”

Hades was born from the conviction that if they can radically improve access to the deep underground, they can unlock entirely new possibilities across mining, geothermal, and beyond.

Mining and geothermal development are essential to the energy transition, but they often face environmental and social scrutiny.

For Hades, improving drilling technology is also a way to address those concerns.

More advanced systems could reduce the surface footprint of operations, minimize waste, and enable more targeted subsurface access.

Instead of large-scale excavation and extensive site disruption, future extraction could become more precise, controlled, and efficient.

That shift matters particularly in regions like Europe, where environmental standards are high and public acceptance is critical.

If resource development can be done with smaller impacts and greater transparency, projects that once faced resistance may become easier to deploy.

For Hades, tech-enabled extraction means building an extraction company where technology is not a support function but the core advantage.

“We are not just developing a better drill and licensing it out. 

We are building proprietary drilling technology and pairing it with resource projects where that technology creates structural advantages in cost, speed, and access. 

In practice, that means tighter integration of hardware, geology, project selection, and operations. 

The goal is to build a new kind of industrial company: one that uses deep tech to unlock resources that were previously uneconomic, inaccessible, or simply overlooked.”

There’s no quick fix to turning a deep-tech concept into an industrial company. But Hades is making rapid progress.

Just last month, Hades raised €15 million at a €67.5 million valuation in a round led by HV Capital and Headline. They were joined by existing backers Project A and Visionaries Tomorrow.

Their path forward involves several key milestones:

“The transition happens when breakthrough technology stops being a demo and starts becoming repeatable industrial infrastructure,” notes Max.

If companies like Hades succeed, the impact could extend far beyond mining alone.

Accessing the underground more efficiently could unlock new geothermal energy systems, enable deeper resource extraction, and support entirely new forms of subsurface infrastructure.

Mining, geothermal energy, and underground construction may increasingly rely on the same technological foundation: advanced access to the deep subsurface.

In that future, drilling technology becomes a strategic capability that underpins energy systems, industrial supply chains, and economic resilience.

Max joins this year’s HackSummit on April 22-23. to meet people who think in systems and are serious about rebuilding industrial capability. 

On April 22nd, he’ll sit down with Thong Le Hoang of Visionaries Tomorrow to discuss Hades' and Europe's role in sustainable mining.

“I am excited to meet investors with long time horizons, technical talent who want to work on civilization-scale problems, and corporates or public-sector actors who understand that resource access is becoming strategic again.”

He adds “I am also always keen to meet other Founders working on hard problems in energy, materials, and industrial deep tech. HackSummit brings together exactly the kind of people who do not just talk about the future, but want to build it.”