August 20, 2015 – Electrochaea moves its headquarters to the greater Munich area

Aug 20, 2015

Hübschle: “The decision to locate our company headquarters in Planegg underlines Bavaria’s leading role as a biotech location in Europe and its market potentials with regard to the energy transition”

In the course of a financing round, the US clean-tech start-up Electrochaea GmbH, which was founded in 2010 as a spinoff from Nidus Partners LP and the internationally recognized University of Chicago, relocated its headquarters to Planegg near Munich. The company has started its business activities at the new company headquarters in close vicinity to the Biotech Cluster in Martinsried in the middle of this year. It currently employs 15 highly qualified experts from nine nations. Thanks to its relocation, Electrochaea is closer to the European primary markets specialized on power-to-gas technology and is able to work together even more closely with its strategic partners such as Audi.

Electrochaea has developed an innovative method for energy storage. With the so-called power-to-gas technology, excess power generated in wind and solar parks is split into hydrogen and oxygen by means of electrolysis. Together with CO2, the hydrogen is then transformed into methane gas using a special biocatalyst. This makes it possible to store huge quantities of renewable electricity in the long term. Contrary to the traditional thermochemical method used for methanation, Electrochaea uses a specially grown microorganism which produces methane extremely efficiently, fast and with high reliability.

The company is very happy with its choice of location: “The area around Martinsried offers many important advantages for Electrochaea. Thanks to the academic institutions, there are many talents, there is a large number of collaboration partners in close vicinity and the necessary venture capital is also provided here,” says Mich Hein, Chief Executive Officer at Electrochaea. “Furthermore, the interest in and demand for power-to-gas technology is just starting to develop here, at this location.” Electrochaea is currently funded by the following investors: Munich Venture Partners, Sirius Venture Partners, b to v, KfW, energie360, Caliza Holding and Focus First.

Dr. Wolfgang Hübschle, Head of Invest in Bavaria, the business promotion agency of the State Bavaria, welcomes the high-tech start-up to the location: “The decision to make Planegg the new location of our company headquarters underlines Bavaria’s leading role as a biotech location in Europe and its market potentials with regard to the energy transition. In the region surrounding the top cluster in Martinsried, the company will encounter an excellent network of research, talents and services.”