More than half of the USD 10bn of venture capital investment into hydrogen firms in 2011-2020 went to start-ups with patents, according to a joint study of patents by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Start-ups with patents represented less than a third of companies in the report’s data set, according to a news release summarizing the findings.
The study found that holding a patent is also a good indicator of whether a start-up will keep attracting finance, noting that “more than 80% of late-stage investment in hydrogen start-ups in 2011-2020 went to companies that had already filed a patent application in areas such as electrolysis, fuel cells, or low-emissions methods for producing hydrogen from gas.”
The percentage increases to 95% when funding acquired in the IPO/post-IPO stage is taken into consideration.
Overall, the report found that hydrogen technology development is shifting towards low-emissions solutions such as electrolysis. Global patenting in hydrogen is led by the European Union and Japan, which account for 28% and 24% respectively of all IPFs filed in this period, with significant growth in the past decade. The leading countries in Europe are Germany (11% of the global total), France (6%), and the Netherlands (3%).
The United States, with 20% of all hydrogen-related patents, is the only major innovation center where international hydrogen patent applications declined in the past decade. International patenting activity in hydrogen technologies remained modest in South Korea and China but is on the rise. In addition to these five main innovation centers, other countries generating significant volumes of hydrogen patents include the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Canada.
