Powering a New Era in Electric Flight

We are excited to share our thought process behind Infinite Capital's $6.7M lead investment into H3X’s oversubscribed $20M Series A round. In the process of deciding to lead the round, we have distilled the potential of H3X's technical innovation into our vision of an electrified future. The company has built ultra high-performance electric motors that promise to enable electric aircraft, as well as sustainable marine and industrial transportation. This capital will allow them to scale production, and continue development of their megawatt class motors. The companies electric propulsion systems have been delivered to aerospace heavyweights, and found customer demand across aviation, marine, heavy industry, defense and power generation. 

H3X’s electric propulsion systems provide the foundational technology for the electrification of aerospace and marine transport, an evolution that is just beginning to unfold.

Infinite originally invested into H3X’s seed round in 2021. Over the past three years, we have witnessed the founding team display a phenomenal speed of innovation. They rapidly commercialized their technical advances into market-leading electric propulsion systems, using key breakthroughs to develop a series of products with numerous industry applications. This has resulted in contracts won with NASA and the US Air Force, as well as partnerships with a range of innovative aerospace companies.

The Evolution of Electric Transportation

The trend of electrified transport is undeniable; the past decade we’ve seen the rise of the electric car, and the proliferation of micromobility with e-bikes and electric scooters. While there has been consumer market adoption, the tech has not extended to industrial and commercial use-cases. Those sectors still predominantly rely on the diesel engine and gas turbines (jet engines, turbofans, etc). As Vaclav Smil notes, in “Prime Movers of Globalization” these two engines are the dominant propulsors in global and international transport. 

The reason electric motors, which exist in abundance, have been relegated to the consumer sector, has been the inability of existing motors to fulfill the power and performance requirements of the industrial and commercial sector. This is a need that H3X is solving, with strong interest from industry leaders in aviation, maritime shipping, and industrial power generation (from hybrid generators to wind turbines). 

With the platform H3X provides, we expect to see an entirely new generation of aerospace and marine transportation types. In fact, we simply have to look to micro consumer applications where electric has excelled, to predict where it will end up. Consumer adoption has shown growth in compact aerial camera drones, and e-foil water sports (electric hydrofoil powered boards), currently at personal scale. H3X’s power density and ultra high-performance now offer the bridge to power these modalities at commercial levels. These hint at new transportation modalities including electric drone delivery, eVTOL (electric vertical take-off landing) planes, and full-scale hydrofoil boat transportation. With a list of approaches being pioneered due to the advances in electrification, including electric sea-gliding planes, and hydrogen-powered plane platforms. While these technologies are being developed, they have yet to reach scaled production adoption. With the capabilities H3X unlocks, we expect this to unfold at scale over the next decade.

Electrification creates Energy Resilience

An often under appreciated fact about the transition to electric propulsion, is the degree to which it creates energy resilience - simply, the lack of reliance on a singular energy type. Current gas, diesel and jet engines completely rely on a single energy source and fuel type - oil. Decarbonization is not just about environmental sustainability, but also the disintermediation of fossil fuel reliance, and the expansion of decentralized energy production. As we transition transportation and industrial sectors to electric, it disconnects that dependency, allowing the use of energy from a range of energy sources: solar, wind, nuclear, coal, and even traditional oil products via hybrid designs. 

This is the magic of the H3X propulsion system, electric powered, but fuel agnostic. While the electric motors can easily operate off of battery-power, they also work well within hybrid designs that enable more efficient usage of diesel/jet fuel. Beyond this, they can even integrate with hydrogen fuel cell systems, opening an entire realm of undiscovered possibilities.

H3X has the rare potential to disrupt a range of industries and enable a new era in clean, energy-resilient power generation and transportation.

This key intersection between energy source and propulsion sets H3X's technology at the juncture of two enormous multi-trillion dollar markets, Energy at $6 Trillion market and Transportation a $7.3 Trillion sector. H3X opens the commercial transportation market to new energy sources, allowing for accelerated adoption of innovation in energy production and storage - whether it be hydrogen, nuclear fission, or hyper-dense batteries. This is a critical transition point to a more diversified and open energy market, one that allows the end consumption to be dictated by the most efficient, sustainable, and available energy source.

The H3X Team's Racing DNA

The H3X founding team of three, Jason, Max and Eric, met while developing the first Formula SAE Electric car at University of Wisconsin-Madison. They led a team of 40 engineers to develop the formula-style race car, earning 1st overall in design for the event’s first AWD electric race car, featuring an in-hub axial motor. Now, the H3X team brings the ethos of a high performance racing team to technical innovation. 

Every growth company is measured and valued on speed of execution. At H3X, it’s clear to us that the interdisciplinary team structure and focus on high-quality deliverables in rapid timelines has enabled this level of innovation. Beyond themselves, the founders have hired a number of former Formula SAE team members into H3X. If you visit their production facility you’ll even see them wearing matching H3X racing jackets, complete with their last names embroidered on the shoulder. At H3X the competitive racing mindset is part of the culture, and their results show the capacity to execute fast on their high-speed motors. 

‍

Press Coverage

Official Press Release - PR Newswire

Forbes - $20 Million Deal is Helping this Startup make the World more Electric

Tech Crunch - H3X Scales up it's Electric Aerospace Ambitions with $20M