An innovative platform and partnership sponsored by Shell, Toyota, and NYSERDA seeking innovations for the adoption of hydrogen infrastructure and supply chain technologies

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BOSTON, June 17, 2019 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Seven early-stage companies were selected as the winners of the H2 Refuel Accelerator, which was designed to identify innovative solutions to increase the adoption of hydrogen infrastructure and supply chain technologies. The H2 Refuel Accelerator is a unique collaboration between the Urban Future Lab, Greentown Labs and the Fraunhofer TechBridge Program, sponsored by Shell, Toyota and NYSERDA.

The accelerator program received 63 applications from all around the globe. Based on an intensive and multi-stage review process Fraunhofer TechBridge, Urban Future Lab and Greentown Labs are pleased to announce the following winners and awards:

• Celadyne - Nanocomposite membranes for high-performance electrolyzers and fuel cells with simple heat and water management.
• Ecolectro - Commercializing Alkaline Exchange Materials that make Electrolyzers and Fuel Cells less expensive and longer lasting.
• Electro-Active Technologies - Renewable hydrogen from waste via a coupled bio-electrochemical process at high electrical efficiency.
• HYGEN - Connected to regular gas grid HYGEN’s supercharger fuels your gas-powered vehicle at home/office in just a few minutes.
• pH Matter - Catalyst materials and unique cell design that enables low-cost hydrogen generation for energy storage.
• Protium Innovation - Lightweight liquid hydrogen tanks and fueling solutions for reliable hydrogen-electric vehicles.
• Skyre - The world’s leader in converting waste H2 and CO2 into economic opportunity.

The awards to the winning startups include Greentown Labs and Urban Future Lab’s acceleration programs and technical validation services from the Fraunhofer R&D network.

Together, Urban Future Lab, Greentown Labs and Fraunhofer TechBridge lead the Northeast community in their capacity to build, test and launch successful game-changing energy technologies into the marketplace. The combination of incubation space, services and technical capacity provided by Urban Future Lab, Greentown Labs and Fraunhofer TechBridge offer one of the most successful technology acceleration models in the country.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is supporting the H2 Refuel Accelerator through its ACRE incubator at the Urban Future Lab. This funding will be used to accelerate the commercialization of promising clean energy technology in New York State through collaboration with industry leading corporations and partners.  Additionally, this program provides an opportunity to attract fuel cell companies to and showcase fuel cell companies from New York State helping to grow New York State's cleantech economy.

About the Accelerator Partners

Urban Future Lab

Urban Future Lab, part of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering,  provides unmatched access to strategic advisement, introductions to industry stakeholders, marketing and branding support, investor networks, and access to a community of like-minded founders. UFL is leading the way to a more sustainable world by connecting people, capital, and purpose to advance market-ready solutions to address climate change. Our flagship program is ACRE, New York City’s premier business incubator for cleantech and smart city startups and is funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. It has been supporting market ready solutions to climate change since 2009, boasting a 90% survival rate of incubated startups which have now raised more than $380M from the private markets and employ more than 340 people. The UFL is part of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and is located in the Downtown Brooklyn. For more information, please visit ufl.nyc or find us on Twitter.

Greentown Labs

Greentown Labs is a community of bold, passionate entrepreneurs developing solutions to our biggest climate and environmental challenges. Located in Somerville, Mass., and founded in 2011, the Greentown Labs Global Center for Cleantech Innovation is the largest cleantech incubator in the United States, operating a 100,000 sq. ft. campus comprised of prototyping and wet lab space, shared office space, a machine shop, electronics lab, and a curated suite of programs and resources. Greentown Labs is home to more than 90 startups that collectively employ more than 1,500 people and have raised more than $550 million in funding. The incubators’ mission is to provide startups with the community, resources, and space they need to thrive. For more information, please visit www.greentownlabs.com or find them on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Fraunhofer USA and the TechBridge Program

The TechBridge Program is organized by Fraunhofer USA in the United States. The core offering of TechBridge is applied, industry-focused R&D projects performed for entrepreneurs by Fraunhofer with the goal of de-risking novel technologies for the private sector. Projects may take the form of developing and testing prototypes, deploying field demonstrations, performing third-party validation, generating test data, or manufacturability studies. These projects bring promising technologies closer to market and make them more attractive for private sector investment, industry adoption, and scale-up funding, ultimately leading to the accelerated success of entrepreneurs and businesses. For more information on Fraunhofer TechBridge, please visit cse.fraunhofer.org/techbridge or follow us on Twitter.

About the Sponsors

Shell

Shell Oil Company is an affiliate of the Royal Dutch Shell plc, a global group of energy and petrochemical companies with operations in more than 70 countries. In the U.S., Shell operates in 50 states and employs more than 17,000 people working to help tackle the challenges of the new energy future.

Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 36 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14 manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than 47,000 people (more than 37,000 in the U.S.).  Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold more than 2.7 million cars and trucks (2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2018 – and about 87 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 15 years are still on the road today. 

 

Through the Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

 

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Fraunhofer TechBridge Contact

Nick Rancis

Fraunhofer TechBridge Program Lead

TechBridge(at)fraunhofer.org