“Her technology Cyrus developed in Greece with the contribution of European resources can play a pivotal role in the spread and exploitation of this critical hydrogen technology.

This is noted on its website NSRFin the part that concerns the examples of projects financed by European funds and a special mention is made of CYRUS, while it is noted that the Greek startup, with the support of EquiFund and EPANEK, has developed a promising technology of hydrogen compression and distribution and has caused international interest.

Specifically, the following are mentioned on the NSRF website:

Hydrogen as a fuel is one of the most promising technologies for the production of powerful and environmentally clean engines, as it has a high efficiency as a fuel and produces zero waste. After all, the product of hydrogen combustion is water, which in the case of engines is released into the atmosphere at a high temperature in the form of water vapor.

Current political, economic and technological developments have renewed interest in the use of hydrogen as a fuel and several companies are investing in the research and development of this technology. However, one of its main disadvantages is that there are several difficulties in its compression, transport and distribution.

In this context, the Greek startup CYRUS, which was founded in 2019 as a spin-off of “Demokritos” Enterprise has created an innovative chemical hydrogen compression solution, based on the use of metallohydrides, which is easy to manufacture and uses only water for heating and cooling. With the CYRUS technology, the energy and operating costs of hydrogen compression drop significantly, as a result, the conditions are created for the more economical and easier distribution of hydrogen with obvious benefits for the use and dissemination of this technology.

At the same time, CYRUS’s innovative solution outperforms conventional hydrogen compressors, as the use of metal hydrides ensures the compression of hydrogen with almost zero sound footprint, unlike conventional compressors that produce very high levels of sound waste. This unique feature makes CYRUS compressors, not only more economical to use, but also suitable for installation in hydrogen filling stations in urban environments where sound emission restrictions do not allow the use of conventional compressors.

The company completed the first Greek operational hydrogen supply station using its technology at the “Demokritos” site, which has a “green” hydrogen production and compression unit through water electrolysis. This unit uses electricity from a photovoltaic system and utilizes CYRUS’s innovative 200 bar hydrogen compressor, high pressure hydrogen storage tanks and a small vehicle refueling system.

Following this great Greek pioneer, the CYRUS team has already proceeded to develop a new compressor model, which delivers pressures of up to 450 bar, which make it suitable for use in refueling stations for large hydrogen vehicles, such as trucks and buses, where the use of conventional fuels produces quite high carbon dioxide emissions and battery use has limitations.

CYRUS’s innovative and at the same time practical approach has attracted the interest of international investors and has already advanced to a second round of funding of over €1 million from the Uni.Fund and the American Advent Technologieswhose shares are traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, creating one of the biggest success stories in the field of Greek startups.

This great success of CYRUS came as a consequence of the support it received in its first steps, thanks to the initial investment it had received from Uni.Fund, amounting to 200,000 euros.

Uni.Fund’s support to CYRUS was not limited to the initial capital investment, but supported and advised the company in its first steps in order to obtain a clear business orientation that would create the conditions for additional investments. The Uni.Fund team continues to support the company on strategic and business development issues.

Characteristically, the Nikos Chalkiadakis, a member of CYRUS, underlined the role of Uni.Fund: “They supported us to become a company recognizable in the industry and thus ultimately contribute to the successful penetration of the market. As a result, I would definitely advise this type of funding to any startup operating in the wider tech sector in Greece.”

CYRUS’s collaboration with people who were experts in business development scaled and steered this startup in the right direction, which contributed to the completion of the successful second round of funding.

It should be underlined that the Uni.Fund is one of the EquiFund funds of the financial tool created by the Greek government, the EIF (European Investment Fund) and with resources from the Operational Program “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship, Innovation” (EPANEK). , within the framework of the NSRF 2014-2020.

The success of Cyrus is of particular strategic importance for the country as we are in a phase where the interest of the E.U. for hydrogen technology has been renewed.

In particular, the European Commission published on 18 May 2022 the REPowerEU Plan to mitigate the effects of rising energy prices, to accelerate the transition to clean energy and to diversify the European gas supply, namely through higher production volumes and of biomethane and renewable hydrogen imports.

It is clear that the Cyrus technology developed in Greece with the contribution of European resources can play a pivotal role in the spread and utilization of this critical technology.

Interested parties can find more information on the website: h2cyrus.eu