Liquidation Ends HySiLabs' EIC Accelerator Liquid Hydrogen Carrier

HySiLabs set out to solve one of the least glamorous problems of the hydrogen economy: how to move the gas. Its answer was HydroSil, a liquid derived from silicon hydride that binds hydrogen, can travel in an ordinary tanker and releases the gas at the destination with water and a catalyst. In the European Innovation Council's Green Deal round of May 2020 the Aix-en-Provence company was among the winners of the EIC Accelerator pilot, with a grant only and no other partner company listed for the project. CORDIS records an EU contribution of €1,185,013 towards a €1,692,875.71 project, HYDROSIL, that ran from 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2022.

Six years after the selection, the company no longer operates. The commercial court of Aix-en-Provence opened receivership proceedings (redressement judiciaire) on 30 July 2026, fixing the date on which HySiLabs stopped paying its debts at 22 July 2026, and on 29 September 2026 converted the case into judicial liquidation, according to the notices in the official gazette BODACC. A statement dated 30 September 2026 on the company's website says "HSL Technologies has ceased operations" after it was "unable to identify a lead investor" for a Series B round.

How the Money Ran Out

The register shows a company that spent heavily and sold almost nothing. HySiLabs reported revenue of €5,000 in each of 2023 and 2024 and net losses of €3.17 million and €3.80 million, according to the INPI accounts data published by the French economy ministry. Its 2025 accounts, filed in July 2026 with a confidentiality declaration covering part of the figures, show a net loss of €4,519,799, a number given by both the INPI dataset and the state's company directory. Figures for 2019 to 2022 are not public, because those accounts were filed with a confidentiality declaration, according to BODACC.

In May 2026 the company said it was still running a Series B round to pay for an intermediate-scale unit at Fos-Martigues by 2029 and a first industrial plant by 2032, in a news post that the EIC Scaling Club later summarised. Less than three months after that post, the court opened receivership. The closing statement blames "a market environment marked by significant caution among investors in both the decarbonized silica and hydrogen sectors" and asks anyone with business concerning the company to contact the liquidator, SAS Les Mandataires.

The Technology: Hydrogen in a Silicon Liquid

Hydrogen is usually moved as compressed gas or bound into a carrier such as ammonia. HySiLabs' carrier is a liquid silicon hydride derivative, which the CORDIS summary calls "stable, non-toxic, non-explosive and non-dangerous". The company claimed a truck of HydroSil carries "7 times more H2" than a truck of high-pressure gas, a figure that comes from the company and that no independent test cited in the sources confirms. Unlike ammonia, the hydrogen comes out without heat: release "requires no energy added", only water and a catalyst, according to Equinor, whose venture arm led the 2023 round. Loading the hydrogen does take energy, as EDP noted when it invested.

The release reaction leaves silica behind. In its last years the company turned that by-product into the headline: its website now presents HSL as a producer of low-carbon precipitated silica, with "renewable hydrogen" as "a valuable byproduct", and the May 2026 post names tyres, elastomers and pharmaceuticals as target industries and claims a life cycle assessment showed more than 80% lower CO₂ emissions than standard silica processes. That assessment itself has not been published. The underlying chemistry came from research at Aix-Marseille University and the CNRS, according to Le Journal des Entreprises and Made in Marseille.

What HYDROSIL Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The EIC project did not aim at a finished product. Its goal, says the CORDIS report, was "to design and prepare a transfer package of the charging process", the step that loads hydrogen into HydroSil, "to be delivered to our future clients", and to demonstrate that process at industrial level. The plan was to license it: the proposal foresaw a business model "based in revenues mainly from royalties and technical support" and "revenues over €82 million in 2030", according to the CORDIS fact sheet.

The charging process had three chemical steps. At the start, step 2 already existed at industrial scale, while steps 1 and 3 were at technology readiness levels 3 and 4. The final report says the company showed that the three steps could be connected at industrial scale and built a demonstrator for step 3 that started producing HydroSil, listed as a pre-industrial plant of "1 kd/day", an apparent typo for kilograms per day. It also says step 1 gave "unsatisfactory results", led to an alternative in-house design and "needs improvement in order to be adopted at industrial scale". The project ended on its scheduled date.

1. Connect the three charging stepsDeliveredFeasibility at industrial scale shown, per the CORDIS report.
2. Kilogram-scale HydroSil synthesisDeliveredPre-industrial demonstrator running at the Arbois site from June 2022, per Le Journal des Entreprises.
3. Step 1 ready for industrial usePartialStill "needs improvement" at project end.
4. Transfer package delivered to clientsNot achievedNo licensee or client for the charging process announced.
5. Royalty revenue towards €82M by 2030Not achieved€5,000 revenue in 2023 and 2024; liquidation in 2026.

The demonstrator was meant to be a first step. At its opening in June 2022, Casanova told Le Journal des Entreprises that an industrial pilot should be delivered within three years, that three or four such pilots would follow, and that the company planned about fifteen strategic partnerships by 2025. No industrial pilot was built by the time of the insolvency; the last plan, from May 2026, put an intermediate unit at Fos-Martigues in 2029. A December 2023 report in Made in Marseille said the company needed a 5,000 m² industrial site and preferred Fos, with a decision expected in early 2024; no site was announced afterwards.

What It Achieved After the Grant

The private money did follow the EIC grant. On 31 January 2023 Equinor Ventures announced that it had led a €13 million Series A, joined by the European Innovation Council Fund, EDP Ventures and the private investor PLD Group, according to Equinor. EDP said it put in €2 million, its first investment in a hydrogen start-up, and that earlier backers Kreaxi, Région Sud Investissement and CAAP Création also took part, according to EDP. Made in Marseille later described the round as €15 million raised in June 2023 from European investors, none of them French; the two figures and dates could not be reconciled. The Spanish fuel logistics group Exolum also lists itself as a shareholder, without giving an amount or date.

HySiLabs appears on the EIC Fund's portfolio, under "Making hydrogen easy to deliver", in the official list of companies the fund has invested in. That stake came through the 2023 Series A, not through the grant-only 2020 award, and its size is not public.

The company also won more EU research money. CORDIS lists a €50,000 SME Instrument Phase 1 study in 2017, DeLIVERS, on HydroSil for hydrogen refuelling stations; a €364,345 share in Sun-To-X, a Toyota Motor Europe-led Horizon 2020 project (2020 to 2024) to make HydroSil with solar energy; and €722,750 as coordinator of RESHIP, a Horizon Europe project on hydrogen-powered ships that ended on 30 April 2026. RESHIP's only published report, for its first 18 months, says a HydroSil release reactor was designed for ships and that real-life tests were rescheduled after delays in choosing a fuel cell, according to its CORDIS reporting page. In QualifHy, a project funded by Bpifrance, the Région Sud and Aix-Marseille Métropole, the company said in November 2024 that it had coupled a fuel cell with hydrogen released from HydroSil for the first time, on a test bench built with Helion, according to its own news post; no independent report of the test was found.

The team grew. The company planned to reach about thirty people by the end of 2022, according to Le Journal des Entreprises, said it had more than 25 employees in June 2023, and Made in Marseille counted almost 40 in December 2023. The latest official band, for 2024, is 20 to 49 employees, according to the state company directory. Leadership changed as well: BODACC notices list Casanova as president in 2021 and 2022 and Corine Dubruel as president from a February 2023 notice, while Made in Marseille still described Casanova as leading the company in December 2023.

Why Europe Cared

Moving hydrogen cheaply is a precondition for the EU's plans. The Commission's hydrogen strategy of July 2020 and the 2022 REPowerEU plan aim for 10 million tonnes of hydrogen produced in the EU and 10 million tonnes imported by 2030, with renewable hydrogen as the priority, which requires ways to store and ship it. HYDROSIL was funded under the EIC's Green Deal topic for exactly that reason. A carrier that can use existing liquid fuel infrastructure, as the company claimed for HydroSil, would address a real gap. The company's failure leaves the patents with the liquidator, and the statement says its "hope now is that this innovation continues", through "HSL in a new form" or a partner.

The Verdict

HySiLabs, its liquidator and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records, EU project data and published statements, linked throughout.