Business

£1bn hydrogen investment fund launched by green entrepreneur Bamford

The new HyCap fund will be injected into UK businesses with the focus on speeding-up green hydrogen production and supply, creating jobs and contributing to net zero targets
The new HyCap fund will be injected into UK businesses with the focus on speeding-up green hydrogen production and supply, creating jobs and contributing to net zero targets The new HyCap fund will be injected into UK businesses with the focus on speeding-up green hydrogen production and supply, creating jobs and contributing to net zero targets

WRIGHTBUS chairman and heir to the JCB excavators empire Jo Bamford has joined forces with multi-family office Vedra Partners to launch HyCap, a new hydrogen investment fund which has set its sights on raising £1 billion.

The capital, which already stands at more than £200 million after the first round of investment, will be injected largely into UK businesses, with the focus on speeding-up green hydrogen production and supply, creating jobs and contributing to the Government’s net zero targets.

And Mr Bamford said his team has already identified more than 40 firms in the hydrogen space which will be evaluated for investment.

“We have also discovered that investors around the world match the ambitions of global governments in wanting green-focused funds which have a positive impact on climate change,” he said.

He added that here were a number of key drivers for the renewed interest in hydrogen - 70 per cent of global GDP is linked to hydrogen country road maps; membership of the Hydrogen Council has increased almost five-fold since 2017, and the UK Government has pledged to have 5 gigawatts of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030.

The HyCap founding team brings together significant hydrogen, manufacturing, financing and fund management expertise, with industry hires collectively having had working knowledge of more than 150 utility-scale renewables projects in more than 12 countries.

Vedra Partners' founder Max Gottschalk, who took the Gottex managed funds from $3 million of seed capital in 1999 to a $16 billion success story eight years later, said there had already been a great deal of interest.

“The fund will be investing across the entire value chain, focusing on production, manufacture and supply, in order to put the UK firmly on the map when it comes to hydrogen,” Mr Gottschalk said.

“By striking meaningful commercial partnerships and developing intelligent go-to-market strategies it is clear HyCap’s maiden fund can add strategic, operational and financial value to the ecosystem while creating entrepreneurial growth businesses.”

When fully deployed, the fund will unlock large-scale long-term job creation and aim to save up to 25 per cent of cities’ transport budget.

With the UK hosting COP26 in Glasgow later this year, Mr Bamford said there was no time to wait in order to harness the appetite of sustainably focused investors.

He believed the UK hydrogen sector would need a £1 billion injection to help it compete with other territories.

“With the Government’s relentless pursuit of net zero targets and the publication of the damning IPCC report, it is our belief that hydrogen holds the key to reducing emissions - and there is a growing sense of urgency to act now,” he said.

“The UK has missed the boat on batteries, a sector dominated by China and the Far East, but we can be global leaders in the production and supply of hydrogen - an economy said to be worth $2.5 trillion in revenues by 2050.”