Adzmel Adznan

Before transitioning to venture capital, Adzmel spent over a decade in the energy sector, progressing through engineering, project development, and strategic leadership roles. He began his career as a project development engineer, working on large-scale energy infrastructure projects before moving into subsurface and commercial roles, where he developed strategies for Malaysia’s upstream petroleum sector.

His work focused on local industry development, strategic partnership, and designing new fiscal models to extend the economic lifecycle of Malaysia’s petroleum assets. Recognized for his ability too bridge technical depth with commercial strategy, Adzmel was instrumental in building PETRONAS Ventures, the company’s corporate venture capital arm.

As founding member, he played a critical role in developing PETRONAS Ventures strategy, focusing on new energy, advanced materials, and industrial automation technologies to future-proof the company’s operations. This experience gave him first hand experience and exposure to venture investing, corporate innovation, and startup collaboration, solidifying his passion for backing frontier technologies with transformational impact.

At Piva, Adzmel applies his technical, commercial, and investment expertise to identify and back visionary entrepreneurs reshaping the future of energy and industry. Adzmel has been instrumental in sourcing, structuring and supporting investments in companies such as Oobli, OneRail and Ineratec. Beyond investments, he also plays a key role in LP relationship and fundraising strategy, having originated and managed Piva’s relationship with PETRONAS.

Adzmel is passionate about solving the energy sector’s most pressing challenges, fostering deep tech commercialisation, and championing diversity, inclusivity, and servant leadership in venture capital. His mission is to bridge industrial expertise with venture investment, ensuring breakthrough technologies scale beyond the lab and into real-world impact.