TDK Ventures invests in ammonia-to-energy hydrogen fuel cell company GenCell
TDK Corporation (TSE: 6762) announced today that subsidiary TDK Ventures Inc. adds GenCell, a world leader in hydrogen and ammonia fuel cell technologies, to its growing investment portfolio.
- Fuel cell company GenCell is TDK Ventures first investment in the renewable energy space
- The Israel-based company develops alkaline fuel cell stacks in the backup power and hydrogen fuel cell market
- GenCell will leverage TDK Corporation’s global reach and deep expertise in at-scale manufacturing and power electronics
GenCell is the first investment in renewable energy by the TDK corporate venture capital (CVC) fund since its July 2019 launch. TDK Ventures Inc. was launched with a mission to invest in innovative startups that focus on digital and energy transformation and contribute to sustainability.
GenCell solutions will comprise a key component of the emerging hydrogen economy, poised to blossom in the next few years. GenCell’s emission-free alkaline fuel cells could truly power fully off-grid rural areas where electricity is not a commodity, contributing to TDK Ventures’ sustainability goals and investment thesis.
“TDK is a strong technology and business partner, with extensive expertise in roll-to-roll coating, manufacturing, and power electronic supply components,” said Rami Reshef, CEO of GenCell. “We deliver the most advanced fuel cell solutions that significantly reduce our customers’ carbon footprint with unprecedented cost savings, efficiency, and performance. We currently operate in 18 countries and consistently look to partners to assist in the performance enhancement of our fuel cells and to increase our business footprint. TDK’s knowledge in process improvement, at-scale manufacturing and power supplies will help us deliver even higher-performance green products with lower total cost of ownership.”
According to Managing Director of TDK Ventures, Nicolas Sauvage, “TDK Ventures specifically scouted for fuel cell companies in the backup storage and off-grid power market and found that very few address the obstacles barring access to hydrogen fuel. GenCell invented a new fuel cell technology that uses ubiquitously-available ammonia as their fuel for the new system, which cracks ammonia into hydrogen and generates electricity.”
“With our expertise in fuel retail, we believe our strategic partnership with GenCell makes addressing the hydrogen economy of the future possible,” said Nir Sztern, the CEO of Paz Oil, who led GenCell’s investment round.
GenCell was founded in 2011 with a vision to offer affordable, clean power for humanity, enabling businesses to “Say No to Diesel” and render diesel generators obsolete. Leveraging core competencies in catalysis and materials science, GenCell’s unique alkaline fuel cell technologies target long-duration backup telecom base stations, data centers, medical facilities, utilities as well as totally off-grid power. GenCell’s fuel cells are operational at extreme environments of -25°C to 95% relative humidity at 2,250m altitude, as well as tested and certified to operate during earthquakes.
www.tdk-ventures.com
