No hydrogen startup should go it alone

“No hydrogen startup should have to go it alone”, says Moshe Sijben, Head of Strategic Partnerships at tech startup incubator and accelerator YES!Delft. Together with Fedor Stomakhin, COO and co-founder of Spiral Hydrogen, and Mohammed Hussein, co-founder of HyER Power, Moshe discusses the power of community.

This is part III in our series ‘Hydrogen in practice’, highlighting startups, fieldlabs and hubs in the region. Read the first parts here about FLIE and FlowVolta & Hymonic & SubZero Rotterdam.

A good idea does not make a business

Spiral Hydrogen is developing a bubble-free electrolyser that produces green hydrogen from water. Its patented technology prevents energy loss caused by gas bubbles and achieves an efficiency of more than 90 per cent. That makes it ideal for companies such as HyER Power, the developer of PHIAB: Power + Heat in a Box. This hydrogen-based CHP system supplies heat and electricity where grid congestion makes conventional electrification difficult. Although the two startups occupy different niches in the hydrogen chain, they face the same challenge: how do you turn a promising idea into a scalable business?

“The technology behind HyER Power was strong, but that alone did not make it a business”, says Mohammed. “We needed to test our ideas and translate them into the real world, and we required help with that.” Estonian-Dutch startup Spiral Hydrogen moved to Delft in 2025, already in possession of a functional prototype. “Even at that stage, there was still a long way to go”, says Fedor. “You need a network as well as practical support and market input.” For both founders, the search for the right growth environment led them to incubator YES!Delft.

“YES!Delft helps tech startups find their way in the Dutch hydrogen ecosystem”

– Moshe Sijben, Head of Strategic Partnerships at YES!Delft

The spider in the hydrogen ecosystem web

“YES!Delft gives startups access to the knowledge and the network they need to find their way through the Dutch hydrogen ecosystem”, explains Moshe. He describes the organisation’s role as the spider in the web. Its validation programme helps early-stage startups test their ideas in practice, while the accelerator offers support to more mature startups in areas such as funding, talent and growth for a minimum of five years. But the support YES!Delft offers goes beyond these programmes. “Long-term relationships matter in deep tech, because developing a product and taking it to market simply takes time”, says Moshe.

“We knew about YES!Delft through our co-founder Saul Oost, who is a TU Delft alumnus”, recalls Mohammed. After a few introductory conversations, HyER Power rented a workspace in the YES!Delft building, joined the validation programme and gradually became part of the network—or the family, as Mohammed describes it. Spiral Hydrogen has a similar Delft connection: co-founder Juri Volodin is a university alumnus too, with a strong local network. He and Fedor explored several incubators in the Netherlands but chose YES!Delft, mostly because of the accelerator and the additional support. It was exactly what the company needed at the time.

According to Moshe, the tech incubator carefully selects the startups it supports: “We are looking for scalable tech or deep tech companies with at least two founders and real potential to grow into category leaders.” This has resulted in a vibrant community of more than 550 startups. Some 83 per cent of accelerator participants remain active and 95 per cent have secured funding. Successful entrepreneurs remain involved in the community as mentors or investors. Mohammed says that is crucial: “Startups like ours cannot do without that kind of community.” Moshe adds: “It’s hard enough to start a business as it is. A little help along the way makes all the difference.”

“Working with competitors does not mean you get less. The cake is big enough for all of us”

– Mohammed Hussein, co-founder of HyER Power