Fuel cell-truck startup Hyzon to go public via merger

Fuel cell-truck startup Hyzon Motors Inc. agreed to a merger with blank-check company Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp. in a deal that values the two combined at more than $2 billion.

The transaction will generate about $626 million of gross proceeds, including $400 million from participants in a private investment in public equity including BlackRock Inc., Fidelity Management & Research Co. and Wellington Management, according to a statement. It’s expected to close in the second quarter of this year.

“Our differentiators are the legacy technology we already have, and leveraging it for this application,” Hyzon CEO Craig Knight said in an interview. “Over the next two years we will demonstrate vehicle operations that can better diesel.”

Bloomberg News previously reported that Hyzon was in talks to merge with Decarbonization Plus, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that raised about $226 million in an initial public offering in October. It is backed by private equity firm Riverstone Holdings.

Decarbonization Plus shares closed Tuesday's trading down 9.7 percent to $16.04.

“It was very clear to us from the very first conversation this was a company that has differentiated technology and extremely advanced commercial relationships,” Decarbonization Plus Chairman Robert Tichio, who is also a partner at Riverstone, said in an interview.

Nikola interest
Hyzon, a maker of hydrogen-powered big rigs, buses and coaches, is the latest in a string of clean-energy vehicle startups to pursue SPAC mergers. Investor interest has intensified since U.S. startup Nikola Corp. went public in June in a deal with blank-check company VectoIQ Acquisition Corp.

Despite having no meaningful revenue, Nikola’s market value surged as high as $28.8 billion before sliding back to its current valuation of about $9 billion.

Hyzon was spun out of Singapore-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, which has been developing fuel cell technology for commercial applications for almost 20 years. The startup, whose investors include Total SE, is headquartered at a former General Motors facility near Rochester in Honeoye Falls, N.Y.

Hyzon’s partners
In July, Hyzon announced plans for a plant in the Netherlands as part of a joint venture with Holthausen Clean Technology. It also has unspecified manufacturing activities with an undisclosed partner in Shanghai and operations elsewhere in Asia and in Australia.

In August, Hyzon reached a deal with Australian mining company Fortescue Metals Group to build a fleet of hydrogen fuel cell buses.

Hyzon already has more than 400 commercial vehicles on the road using its fuel cell technology, according to the company. It expects to deliver about 5,000 fuel cell-powered trucks and buses by 2023 and is targeting annual capacity of around 40,000 fuel cell-electric vehicles by 2025.