Optimising Green Hydrogen to Fuel the Future with Fredrik Mowill | Conversations in Cleantech | Season four, Episode Nine

Fredrik Mowill is a cleantech industry veteran. Before co-founding Hystar, Fredrik spent 15 years as CEO of the family-business OPRA Turbines which was eventually sold in 2017. After the sale, the entrepreneurial spirit was still strong in Frederik and he knew that he wanted to plough his energy into another start-up. 

Fredrik was given the opportunity to be an advisor for SINTEF and it was here he met his co-founders and the technology that would eventually become Hystar. In the past two years, Hystar has gone from strength to strength. The company is about the launch its first semi-commercial project and showcase the difference its PEM electrolysers can make in an industrial setting. Along with this, they have also just closed their Series B funding round so it is safe to say, Fredrik and the Hystar team have been busy with no signs of slowing down!

Take a read on to discover more about the Hystar journey and the advice Fredrik would offer to first-time cleantech founders. Listen to Fredrik’s full episode, here. 

Can you talk us through the early stages of Hystar?

I have been an entrepreneur most of my life. I have started a few companies in the clean energy space and raised funding previously so it wasn’t all new to me but every new company creates a new slate. Previous success also doesn’t guarantee future success so it has been a really nice opportunity for me to start afresh and think about how I can do things differently this time. I have found it very liberating!

The technology and my co-founders, Alejandro Barnett and Magnus Thomassen all came from SINTEF. Our big advantage is that our technology has been extensively tested and verified. However, you still have to start and grow the company.  

I had a really good relationship with the people who eventually became our lead investors. I have been on the other side of the table as an investor at various points in my career so I knew how vital funding would be. We actually had a lot of the funding in place before we launched - this is the first time I have done it this way and it is different from the typical way however there are many advantages of it.

Between myself and my co-founders, we have a mix of technology skills and commercial experiences so we had quite a smooth start. It is a challenge to set up any company whether you want it to be a lifestyle business or have aims to grow into an industry leader. I believe getting the right people in the right place is the key ingredient. 

I think the most critical element of founding a business is getting together the right founding team. This gives you a fantastic base to build on. Whilst there are lots of challenges, they become a lot easier to overcome if you are obsessive about bringing together the best possible people, who work together and share the same values. 

One of the things I’ve spent a lot of time on in this business compared with my previous businesses is defining our values. If you use them to actively build the team, you can create an excellent culture.

Can you tell us more about the two exciting announcements Hystar has just made?

The first announcement is our first full-scale customer project. It is a semi-commercial project - I should point out that some of the funding has come from the Norweigan Government. Launching this project has been a key milestone for us. Running your conductors for 1000s of hours in your own test facilities is great but showcasing to the industry that it works in the field is just something else. 

This project triggered our Series B funding round. We held our initial funding round a couple of years ago with AP Ventures as our lead investment and additional investment from the venture fund of SINTEF, a local region investment company and us as co-founders.

Now, we’re scaling up and we’re in the process of discussing quite significant commercial opportunities with several customers. We’re doubling the size of our team in the next year or two. We’re setting up a gigawatt production line and we will make an investment decision on this later in the year. 

The nature of our business means we require capital and we can’t keep all these wonderful things to ourselves. We have fantastic partners and investors who have and continue to help us grow. With the latest round of funding, we were fortunate to have several different options to finance the company. However, our ideal scenario was to bring on board some large international industrial investors who could not only provide funding but also help grow the business and become part of our customer base, or in some cases, our suppliers. We were fortunate to be able to pick and choose to some extent and get a mix of capital. 

Bringing in investment makes us stronger as a business. We are not a multi-billion dollar corporation, just yet, we have some way to go and a lot of hard work ahead of us. However, having the support of some of these industry giants who have exciting and significant plans for green hydrogen allows us to remain dynamic while benefiting from their help and advice behind the scenes. 

What advice would you give to any first-time founders?

Surround yourself with the right people from the start, from co-founders to your initial employees to investors and board members. Make sure you have the right people who can help you but can also challenge you. I think you also need to ensure everyone has the same values and you’re all wanting to go in the same direction. 

As a founder, you will need to become resilient because you will face challenges, make plenty of mistakes and stare into the abyss several times. To deal with these, you need to develop resilience. I also think it is important not to worry too much, but rather worry in the right way. You will have to learn to deal with issues quickly and be able to cope with problems and rejection. If you have the right team around you, it makes you stronger.

If you are starting a business which you plan to scale to a significant size, I think it is important to think big from the start and also make sure you can get enough funding. Not all businesses need this, you can have more of a smaller lifestyle business that you don’t intend to scale. However, if you’re trying to set up a capital-intensive start-up that you want to scale, you need to make sure you have enough funding and that you will be able to reach certain milestones because you’ll more than likely need more money down the road. 

It can become a massive problem in the future if you raise too little money. That was something I was really focused on from the beginning to ensure we remained well-funded. Although this is easier said than done! Raising finance can be challenging and I’ve been in a position several times where I’ve had to beg and grovel. Whenever you have a chance to raise money, take as much as you can, within reason. 

Enjoyed this article? Listen to the full podcast here, and connect with Fredrik on LinkedIn to follow the Hystar journey.