HydrogenOne Capital Growth (HGEN) has announced a strategic investment by Baker Hughes in portfolio company Elcogen AS as part of an overall funding package totalling €140 million. This funding will be used to continue to scale up Elcogen’s leading solid oxide cell technology for green hydrogen. HGEN noted that the investment by Baker Hughes, which follows strategic investment by HD Hyundai in October 2023, underscores both the company’s strategy of backing the leading innovators in the hydrogen industry, and the valuation of its investment in Elcogen.
HydrogenOne anchored the equity round in 2022 with an investment of €24 million, followed by HD Hyundai’s investment of €45 million in 2023, with the new investment announced today from Baker Hughes and Mirae bringing the total equity raised to c. €100 million. In addition, Elcogen has accessed project grants from the European Commission, including an IPCEI grant totalling more than €24 million, and a proposed debt issue of €15 million. Taken together, Elcogen has now raised more than €140 million since 2022 for the continuous development and scaling of its market leading solid oxide technology, helping to enable affordable green hydrogen and accelerating the energy transition.
These funds will be used to expand Elcogen’s manufacturing capacity as it continues to build a new factory facility in Tallinn, Estonia, with a manufacturing capacity of up to 360MW, to meet increasing demand for its products, as well as the needs of its continuous development programme. Following this investment, Elcogen intends to collaborate on green hydrogen production solutions based on its SOEC technology with both HD Hyundai and Baker Hughes.
As at 31 December 2023, HydrogenOne’s investment in Elcogen represented 18.4% of the company’s NAV.
Dr JJ Traynor, managing partner of HydrogenOne Capital LLP, the company’s investment adviser, commented: “This investment marks another important milestone for HydrogenOne’s second largest portfolio investment. Baker Hughes is a leading energy technology company, and is a further important strategic investor in Elcogen, alongside HD Hyundai. This is another powerful endorsement of Elcogen’s technology and capabilities in solid oxide supply chains.”
Chris Nash, chairman of Elcogen, said: “We are delighted to welcome Baker Hughes as a strategic shareholder. I believe this is a significant vote of confidence in our technology from a leading energy technology company. We look forward to building on this relationship as we continue working together.”
Enn Õunpuu, CEO of Elcogen: “There is a huge amount of pressure for heavy industries to decarbonise and meet net-zero targets . We are very pleased that Baker Hughes has invested in Elcogen, recognising the role our proprietary Solid Oxide technology has in supporting the energy transition.”
Alessandro Bresciani, senior vice president climate technology solutions, Baker Hughes: “This investment further demonstrates our commitment to support the energy transition and the development of the hydrogen economy, which we believe will be an essential part of the energy mix of the future. Today’s announcement underscores our strategy in collaborating to build out solutions that can enable the decarbonization of the energy ecosystem and marks another significant milestone in our journey to continue to expand our portfolio across the hydrogen value chain.”
HGEN : HydrogenOne announces strategic investment
Any word on what price they paid for shares versus Hydrogen One investing a few years prior?
Unfortunately, no. What we can say is that – as stated in our last note – all of the positions in the private portfolio have downside protections such as anti-dilution (protecting the fund in the event that the company raises more money at a lower valuation than HGEN paid). The company should be publishing its results fairly shortly, we may get more information then.