SinoHyKey, a fuel cell MEA developer based in the Greater Bay Area, raised CNY 300 million from its B-round financing, with an evaluation of CNY 3 Billion before investment.
Recently, SinoHyKey Technology (Chinese: 鸿基创能) has announced its successful completion of a B round financing of CNY 300 million (USD 41.39 million). Under a tight quota, it is known that many investment agencies have participated in this investment, including some state-owned investment funds from Guangdong. As a result, the maximum share of investment only contained around CNY 30 million.
Founded in Dec 2017, SinoHyKey has been a leading player in the fuel-cell membrane electrode assembly (MEA) industry. Led by the former chief scientist Siyu Ye from Ballard Power Systems (BLDP), the technical team of SinoHyKey consists of numerous fuel cell experts from China and North America according to public information. SinoHyKey has reached strategic cooperation with Sino Synergy (Chinese: 国鸿氢能), another unicorn in the hydrogen energy industry which focuses on hydrogen fuel cell system supply. It is understood that SinoHyKey will raise another series of financing by the end of this year, with Bosch and Sinopec fixed as participants in advance.
However, top-tier overseas companies are expanding the Chinese market under the rapid development of hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology. The industry leader in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), Ballard Power Systems, has signed an investment agreement with the government of Anting Town in Shanghai Jiading District with a plan of building Chinese headquarters, MEA development factories and R&D centers. Assumably, this will be a real challenge for domestic MEA developers.