H2U Technologies closes funding round; Enapter negotiates with investors
Reliance on rare and precious metals such as iridium dramatically increases the cost of PEM electrolysis and so the cost of green hydrogen.
H2U Technologies, Inc. (H2U) has closed an oversubscribed $11 million Series A funding round with leading venture capital and energy firms, led by Jericho Energy Ventures, Freeflow Ventures, VoLo Earth Ventures, and Hess Corporation.
H2U raised a $7 million first tranche of Series A financing in 2021, co-led by Jericho, Hess, Dolby Family Ventures and Motus Ventures.
Coupled with H2U’s novel, low-cost electrolyser design, the aim is to produce low green hydrogen.
Proceeds from the deal will be used to advance H2U’s innovative electrolyser designs and to commission the build of its proprietary Catalyst Discovery Engine™ (CDE). The CDE is one million times faster than traditional catalyst discovery processes and uses artificial intelligence to identify non-PGM PEM catalysts.
Previously, H2U and SoCalGas have partnered to pilot H2U’s novel PEM electrolyser – the Gramme 50™ (G50) – which features breakthrough sub-component innovations to enable low-cost green hydrogen production.
Mark McGough, President and CEO of H2U, said, “H2U has discovered abundant, low-cost catalysts for green hydrogen production, replacing rare, expensive PGMs.”
Enapter negotiates with strategic investors
Enapter AG is working on financing to construct its production facility, the Enapter Campus. It is in advanced negotiations with a total of three interested strategic investors.
These include sales and development cooperation agreements and a potential equity injection by way of a capital increase of € 20-70 million per investor. The company expects negotiations to be completed by the end of March. Until then, financing for the construction of the Enapter campus has been secured by Enapter Immobilien GmbH. If there is no financing by the end of March, the major shareholder Sebastian-Justus Schmidt will, in principle, stand ready with interim financing.
A non-binding term sheet from a bank consortium consisting of three banks has been submitted, subject to various conditions. The current schedule assumes that the financing will be completed by the end of May 2022. The volume of debt financing is € 90 million, of which € 70 million is earmarked for the financing of the Enapter Campus and € 20 million as advance financing for subsidies.
