MUSCAT: IDO Investments, the venture capital arm of Oman Investment Authority (OIA), is among a number of international strategic and financial investors that have participated in the latest funding round launched by Australian electrolyser company Hysata.
The Wollongong-based company, credited with building one of the world’s most energy-efficient electrolysers — pivotal to the production of cost-competitive green hydrogen necessary to support the global energy transition – successfully completed a $111.3 million Series B funding round earlier this week.
Leading the investment round were BP Ventures and Templewater (a Hong Kong based alternative investment firm), with backing from existing major investors IP Group Australia, Kiko Ventures, Virescent Ventures on behalf of Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Hostplus, Vestas Ventures and BlueScopeX. Major strategic investors that also participated in the funding were Oman Investment Authority’s VC arm IDO, POSCO Holdings, POSCO E&C, IMM Investment Hong Kong, Shinhan Financial Group Co, Twin Towers Ventures, and TelstraSuper.
Congratulating Hysata on the successful conclusion of its Series B funding round, Al Muthar al Kharousi, Senior Investment Analyst — Oman Investment Authority, commented: “This investment plays into Oman’s strategic goals of being a leader in Green Hydrogen and the International Energy Agency (IEA) goals of Net Zero Emissions by 2050. Hysata’s highly efficient alkaline electrolysers will without a doubt play a big role in helping achieve these targets and looking forward to being part of this journey alongside working on how Oman can best benefit from their expertise within the industry,” he added in a post on Thursday.
Hysata is developing new high-efficiency electrolysers designed to produce green hydrogen at scale with higher energy efficiency and lower costs than alternative technologies. The company’s innovative technology combines engineering and science in a unique capillary-fed alkaline electrolyser that uses less energy to convert water to hydrogen.
The Australian startup plans to utilise the new funding to expand production capacity at its manufacturing facility in Wollongong, New South Wales and further develop its technology to enable gigawatt-scale electrolyser manufacturing.
Hysata CEO, Paul Barrett, said: “Our mission at Hysata is to accelerate the deep decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, chemical manufacture, and heavy transport, by delivering the world’s most efficient, simple, and reliable electrolysers. With high-efficiency, intrinsically low capex and a mass-manufacturable design, Hysata aims to drive down the levelised cost of hydrogen.”
The investment by Oman Investment Authority (OIA) is in line with its strategy to support Oman’s ambitions to transition towards a green hydrogen powered energy future. Energy efficient electrolysers are key to the goal of achieving the production of globally cost-competitive green hydrogen in Oman.
To help Oman meet its requirements of large-scale electrolysers – estimated in the hundreds over the next six years — OIA signed an agreement with global tech giant Siemens Energy last December, to explore the potential for establishing an electrolyser manufacturing facility locally.
Earlier in October, OIA announced an investment in US-based Electric Hydrogen (EH2), which specialises in developing and manufacturing electrolysers using proton exchange membrane technology. Electric Hydrogen's technology allows for the manufacture and operation of electrolysers with an operating capacity of up to 100 MW, each of which can produce up to 50 tonnes of green hydrogen per day at a low cost.
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