Energy Leap Concludes its Inaugural Innovation Challenge for Clean Hydrogen Start-ups – Winners Announced at the Exchange 2024

Xynteo’s Energy Leap, an end-to-end clean hydrogen technology and business accelerator launched in 2023, presented its first Innovation Challenge award to Suzhiyam Industrial Machines, a promising start-up working on a pathbreaking solution in the clean hydrogen value chain, at the Exchange, presented by Hindalco in collaboration with Xynteo, on 16 February.

(L-R) Vikas Mehta, Executive Director, SED Fund; Davendra Kumar, Managing Director, Technip Energies India; Ananda Rajeshwaran.J, Co-founder, Suzhiyam; Vivekanandan Jegadeesan, Co-founder, Suzhiyam

For the Innovation Challenge, Energy Leap received 23 applications from innovators with early stage solutions with technology readiness level (TRL) <6. The focus areas for the challenge spanned across production technologies, utilisation solutions for industry applications, advanced storage and transportation, materials, catalysts, digitisation and monitoring.

Suzhiyam won USD 25,000 for its innovation on producing clean hydrogen from agri-waste and municipal solid waste sources, and will collaborate with Energy Leap to further their innovation towards market readiness. Grassroots Energy, Hydrovert Technologies and Prasah are the other finalists and Energy Leap will extend its support for technology validation and networking with partners across the value chain. These four early-stage start-ups will be part of Energy Leap’s portfolio alongside high-potential start-ups, Ossus Bio-renewables and SungreenH2, which have advanced and market-ready solutions for scaling up.

Experts and advisors of Energy Leap comprising Dr. Aravind Kumar Chandiran, Associate Professor, IIT Madras; Manish Panchal, Member – CII Green Hydrogen Task Force; Dr. N. Rajalakshmi, Former Head, CFCT, ARCI; Shyam Kishore Chowdhary, AVP, Head Process & Technology, Technip Energies and Mridula Bhardwaj, Capacity Building Specialist, International Solar Alliance evaluated the applications based on parameters of technical feasibility, commercial viability and market opportunity.

Xynteo’s Energy Leap programme is partnered by SED Fund, Technip Energies, Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad, with support from Cambridge Cleantech, Energy Systems Catapult, CIIE.CO and Amazon Web Services.

Vikas Mehta, Executive Director, SED Fund said, “We are excited to collaborate with Energy Leap towards enabling the clean hydrogen innovation ecosystem in collaboration with industries and investors. The Innovation Challenge award is a step towards generating a pipeline of viable commercial solutions in short to medium term, making hydrogen a mainstream agenda towards net zero.”

Vipul Kumar, Senior Partner, Xynteo, said, “We are unyielding towards our commitment to create planet-positive impact, and today Energy Leap’s Innovation Challenge is another testament to our resolve to work tirelessly towards good growth. This Challenge highlights the need to enable collaboration across the hydrogen innovation ecosystem and demonstrate proof points for various end use-cases. We congratulate Suzhiyam for the award, and with support of our Energy Leap partners, we hope to empower their growth, and help them unlock the vast potential of clean hydrogen in India and beyond.”

All portfolio start-ups will receive active support from Energy Leap across areas of technology validation and commercialisation; industry partnerships; business mentoring and investments. The programme will focus on supporting ~50 innovations across the clean hydrogen value chain over the next 4-5 years and invites partners from around the world to join the Energy Leap’s journey.

Visit Energy Leap for more details on the about our Innovation Challenge and the Growth Accelerator.

About Energy Leap

Energy Leap, a clean hydrogen technology and business accelerator, focuses on driving innovation and market creation for clean hydrogen in India and globally. It supports the wider ecosystem encompassing energy security, the hydrogen economy and decarbonisation.

The programme aims to facilitate technology commercialisation, market creation and unlocking capital for start-ups, and bringing together stakeholders such as industry, investors, technology and think tanks. The programme’s Growth Accelerator works to catalyse new technologies and start-ups across the hydrogen value chain, and commercialise them through business modelling, operational, technology and investment support, and market access.