Verdagy, a Singapore specialist in scaling electrolyzer technologies for industrial markets, makes a new investment.

Verdagy has announced this week that a $73-million Series B funding round in a green hydrogen innovator has been closed.

Temasek and Shell Ventures co-led the Series B round, with participation from new global investors Bidra Innovation Ventures, BlueScope, Galp, Samsung Venture Investment, Toppan Ventures, Tupras Ventures, Yara Growth Ventures and Zeon Ventures, the firm said in a statement.

The new funding will let Verdagy accelerate the launch and commercialisation of its eDynamic 20 megawatt (MW) electrolyzer module, which will serve as a unit to future systems at the 200MW scale and beyond.

Following initial commercial unit deployments with existing partners, Verdagy will expand deployment of its eDynamic electrolyzer technology to additional customers in heavy industries such as oil and gas, ammonia, steel, and e-fuels to support global industrial decarbonisation, the firm continued.

“Verdagy is rising to the challenge to accelerate the green hydrogen economy and decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as steel and ammonia production,” Vikas Gupta, partner at Shell Ventures said. “The management team has a successful track record in scaling climate technologies from megawatts to gigawatts and they are committed to achieving the same at Verdagy,” he added.

Green hydrogen is defined as splitting water using renewable energy, like solar and wind. Verdagy’s technology enables deep decarbonisation of heavy industries by incorporating green hydrogen at a very large scale.

Their technology drives down the investment with the low operating cost of their eDynamic 20MW electrolyzers coupled with flexible operating capabilities and single-element architecture SmartCells, allowing the large (3m2) cells to operate at higher current densities. This translates directly into more hydrogen production per cell with real-time performance monitoring and predictive maintenance built in.

Tesla gigafactory link
The team behind the next generation of green hydrogen production is led by industry veterans in the hydrogen, solar, and battery sectors. Verdagy CEO Marty Neese brings experience across companies such as SunPower and Ballard; COO Peter Cousins draws on his past work scaling Tesla’s gigafactories; and founder, board member Dr Ryan Gilliam is a serial entrepreneur, and founder of industrial decarbonisation companies Fortera, and Chemetry.

With this team, Verdagy said it has assembled a wealth of knowledge on producing hydrogen at scale and delivering solutions to customers with urgent decarbonisation needs.

“By leveraging our patented large electrochemical cells, using membranes, and enabling high current density operations and a wide dynamic range, Verdagy has dramatically lowered the CAPEX of an electrolyzer,” Neese said. “We have shown that our core technology works and Verdagy is ready to scale globally,” he added.   

“Yara is taking the lead on driving the use of electrolyzers in the ammonia and fertilizer industry. We see a strong need for cost-competitive, clean hydrogen to be able to decarbonise and drive the movement towards a more environmentally friendly industry,” Stian Nygaard, investment director at Yara Growth Ventures, said. “Electrolyzers are a technology requiring a lot of innovation and product development. We are really impressed by how Verdagy is taking on this challenge and want to take part in this adventure. The world needs them,” he continued.

“Verdagy’s potential to demonstrate high-current density over a wide dynamic range across large-area cells led us to incubate and write the first check into the company in early 2020,” Rajesh Swaminathan, partner at Khosla Ventures said. “Since then, the team has made significant progress in validating key performance and cost targets, getting them closer to building out a green hydrogen economy,” he added.

“Verdagy is at an inflection point – going from proven technology to commercialisation stage,” Amar Singh, head of group at Bidra Innovation Ventures said. “We believe Verdagy can further compound Morocco’s unique advantages, such as low-cost solar and wind energy, captive demand, and proximity to customers in Europe,” he continued.

“We are more than doubling down in this round on Verdagy, we are witnessing how they have gone from a valuable technology to a defensible business,” Anil Achyuta, managing director at TDK Ventures, said.