Investor at Clean Energy Ventures · Joined 2026
View Live Interactive Profile →Max Werny is an Investor at Clean Energy Ventures, based in Europe, who joined the firm in June 2026. He was previously an Associate at Zero Carbon Capital, where he led the fund's expansion across the DACH region and invested in sustainable aviation fuel, and before that held an investment role at Extantia Capital sourcing and diligencing seed-stage deals in metal recovery, biomining and direct air capture. Earlier in his career he held commercial and technical positions at Heraeus Precious Metals, BASF and Alantum, working on industrial catalyst development, techno-economic modelling, CO2 valorization and precious metal recycling. He holds a PhD in Catalysis and Spectroscopy from Utrecht University's Institute for Sustainable & Circular Chemistry, where he won the 2024 Golden Thesis Award, and B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemistry from the Technical University of Munich. He was also a visiting researcher at the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max Planck Society and a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore.