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On the unicorn course:
founder and Sunfire CEO
Nils Aldag
Of course, Nils Aldag (35) immediately studied the coalition agreement that the traffic light rulers released from their laptops in mid-November.
Keyword?
"Hydrogen".
Hit?
28.
First of all, he is extremely pleased with the large number.
After all, the CEO's whole hope of turning his company Sunfire into a billion-dollar company rests on the chemical element H.
But for that, Aldag believes, the coalition's clouded hydrogen commitments are not enough.
The country is to become a "lead market for hydrogen technologies" by 2030, and there is to be a "technology-open design of hydrogen regulation".
It does not need new political goals, but euro-hard projects and programs.
"Everything is there to start the transformation: the technology, the capital, the demand."
Not least thanks to Sunfire. The mechanical engineering company has developed particularly efficient, container-sized systems that generate hydrogen by means of electrolysis. It can be used directly in steelworks or chemical plants. Or Sunfire uses it to produce fuel that replaces kerosene or diesel. And if the electricity used comes from renewable sources, the whole thing is climate-neutral. Aldag thus has the perfect product to help companies like Salzgitter or Boeing to become greener. Both are already Sunfire customers.
A decade ago, the CEO and his two co-founders knew that hydrogen would be essential for the green transformation of industry and mobility.
The business economist from Hamburg founded Sunfire in 2010 with two partners in Dresden.
He was ridiculed for a long time.
After all, Sunfire has received several grants from the EU and the federal government.
In order to persevere, Sunfire expanded its portfolio through takeovers: Aldag bought fuel cell know-how as well as a second electrolysis process.
Now the hype is everywhere.
It can't go fast enough for customers.
"We are currently negotiating contracts with a volume of 3.5 billion euros," says Aldag.
In 2020, Sunfire's sales were still in the single-digit million range.
Today the company has four locations and 300 employees.
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