ZeroAvia Acquires Leading Fuel Cell Stack Innovator HyPoint

ZeroAvia has acquired lead­ing fuel cell stack inno­va­tor HyPoint, whose advanced high-tem­per­a­ture fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy for increas­ing pow­er out­put and ener­gy den­si­ty of avi­a­tion fuel cell pow­er­trains will add to ZeroAvia’s exper­tise in devel­op­ing the full pow­er­train to enable hydro­gen-elec­tric flight.

All 40 HyPoint team mem­bers will be inte­grat­ed into ZeroAvia, work­ing across the R&D loca­tions in Kem­ble, Glouces­ter­shire, and HyPoint’s loca­tion in Sand­wich, Kent. HyPoint’s CEO Alex Iva­nenko joins ZeroAvia as GM for VTOL and New Seg­ments, to devel­op ZeroAvia’s rotor­craft busi­ness appli­ca­tions, and to explore oth­er appli­ca­tions out­side ZeroAvia’s core focus on fixed-wing com­mer­cial avi­a­tion.

HyPoint’s engi­neer­ing team will join ZeroAvia’s Hydro­gen Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion Sys­tems (PGS) divi­sion led by CTO Hydro­gen Rudolf Coertze, com­bin­ing two excep­tion­al­ly tal­ent­ed fuel cell researchers and engi­neers work­ing in the field today.

The com­pa­nies worked to co-devel­op and test High Tem­per­a­ture Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane (HTPEM) fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy over the last cou­ple of years, with HyPoint relo­cat­ing the bulk of its R&D into the UK in Feb­ru­ary 2022 to sup­port the part­ner­ship.

HyPoint is recog­nised as an inno­va­tor of fuel cell propul­sion for larg­er air­craft, and this ear­ly part­ner­ship was part of ZeroAvia’s work with­in the HyFly­er II pro­gramme, sup­port­ed by the UK’s Aero­space Tech­nol­o­gy Insti­tute (ATI) Pro­gramme.

ZeroAvia founder and CEO Val Mif­takhov said: “We see this as a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward for ZeroAvia to strength­en our lead­er­ship posi­tion in hydro­gen-elec­tric pow­er­train devel­op­ment for avi­a­tion.

“This acqui­si­tion, togeth­er with our long-stand­ing part­ner­ship with lead­ing low-tem­per­a­ture PEM fuel cell mak­er Pow­er­Cell, puts us in the top posi­tion for deliv­er­ing the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly attrac­tive solu­tion to aviation’s grow­ing cli­mate impact.”

Alex Iva­nenko, for­mer CEO of HyPoint and new­ly appoint­ed GM for VTOL and New Seg­ments at ZeroAvia, said: “This acqui­si­tion allows us to tap into the ben­e­fits of the larg­er strate­gic resources that ZeroAvia has to offer. As a result, part­ners from dif­fer­ent mar­ket seg­ments will get mature prod­ucts based on nov­el tur­bo-air cooled HTPEM hydro­gen fuel cells.”

In March, the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety held the first pub­lic event in the Unit­ed States on the use of hydro­gen and fuel cells for avi­a­tion, the 1st H2-Aero Sym­po­sium & Work­shop, at Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia.

The Sym­po­sium fea­tured pre­sen­ta­tions from air­craft devel­op­ers Air­bus, Bar­ti­ni, Piasec­ki Air­craft and ZeroAvia, as well as hydro­gen com­pa­nies Shell, Plug Pow­er, Uni­ver­sal Hydro­gen and ZEV Sta­tion.