Swiss hydrogen startup Brightank lands $48,900 grant from Venture Kick

What's the deal? Brightank, an EPFL spin-off, has received a US$36.7K (roughly $48,900) grant from Venture KickDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → to advance its catalyst technology for on-demand hydrogen production. The company develops catalysts that crack ammonia into hydrogen at the point of use, using abundant, non-precious materials that operate at lower temperatures.

What's the endgame? Brightank aims to make hydrogen systems more compact and cost-effective for heavy industries looking to adopt cleaner energy. The approach targets hydrogen's transport and storage challenges, since ammonia is easier to move and store than hydrogen itself.

What's the money for? The grant will fund customer visits, catalyst validation, preparation of evaluation batches, and investor meetings. "We want to move from promising EPFL research to a catalyst that industrial customers can confidently test and adopt," the company said.

Why now? The award follows a US$91.7K FITDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → seed loan in May 2025 to boost production capacity and prepare for initial industrial sales. Brightank says industrial partners have begun discussing testing its catalyst in their own systems, pushing it toward a more customer-first strategy focused on durability, manufacturability, and economics.

What could go wrong? This is an early-stage grant, not evidence of a major financing or commercial breakthrough. The more consequential milestones — independent performance validation and paid industrial deployments — remain ahead. Brightank also faces a growing field: Swiss rival Neology Hydrogen has moved toward customer deployments of ammonia-cracking systems and won a US project grant.

The signal: The grant sits in the bottom percentiles for round size, underscoring how modest this step is in Brightank's development. Still, it reflects continued investor interest in ammonia-to-hydrogen technology as a route around hydrogen's storage and transport hurdles — a sector where the race is increasingly about who reaches paid deployments first.

Read more: venturekick.ch

Image credit: John Englart (Takver)