Hydrogen is the transportation fuel of the future. So say a larger group of institutional investors, which have injected DKK 400 million into Norwegian hydrogen company Nel, which acquired Danish firm H2Logic a few years ago.

Institutional investors were invited to bid on the company, which issued 84.9 million new shares at a NOK 5.45 (EUR 0.56) price per share, generating gross proceeds of NOK 462.7 million (EUR 47.88 million).

The closing price for Nel equity increased to NOK 5.93 per share Wednesday night after the end of the funding process was announced.

The intention to raise capital was publicly announced by Nel Wednesday and was sold out in under 12 hours.

Norwegian banks Sparebank 1 Markets and Carnegie were the bookrunners in the sale share, while Norne Securities acted as the sales agent.

Nel will spend the millions on upgrading the technology of H2Station to better serve heavy vehicles and bracing the company for higher order volumes.

Nel's revenue increased to NOK 116 million over the first quarter, according to the November report. Growth in revenue took place during a quarter when Nel also opened its new hydrogen facility in Denmark and flagged plans to build what will become the world's largest electrolysis facility in Norway as well as having also entered several deals, including one with power plants in Australia for hydrogen production. Nel has also secured EU funds of NOK 40 million to develop hydrogen solutions for buses.

At the end of 2018, Nel had orders totaling NOK 365.3 million. However, this does not include conditional orders from US semi-truck manufacturer Nikola for a potential 448 hydrogen stations valued and several billion Norwegian kroner. However, the contract is dependent on whether Nikola will develop its hydrogen semi-truck according to projections. Hydrogen semi-trucks and hydrogen stations will support the contract entered between Nikola and US construction giant Anheuser-Busch for the delivery of up to 800 hydrogen semi-truck.

In Autumn 2017, Nel also saw huge success with an oversubscribed share issues, which brought the company NOK 220 million in new capital.

English Edit: Lena Rutkowski

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