Fuel-Cell Truck Startup Hyzon Agrees to Merge With Decarbonization Plus SPAC

Ed Ludlow and Gillian Tan, Bloomberg News

A worker inserts the nozzle of a hydrogen dispenser into a Toyota Motor Corp. Mirai fuel-cell vehicle (FCV) for a photograph during the opening ceremony of the Toyosu Hydrogen Station, jointly built by Tokyo Gas Co. and Japan H2 Mobility LLC (JHyM), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020. The latest filling station that will be used to service Toyota's fuel cell buses during the 2020 Olympics and Paralympic Games opens Thursday near Tokyo's fish market. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Hyzon Motors Inc., a fuel-cell truck startup, has agreed to go public via a merger with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The special purpose acquisition company has held discussions about raising new equity to support the transaction that values the combined entity at more than $2 billion, some of the people said, requesting anonymity because the talks are private. A deal could be announced within the next week.

Representatives for Hyzon and Decarbonization Plus declined to comment.

Decarbonization Plus, a vehicle sponsored by an affiliate of private equity firm Riverstone Holdings and led by Erik Anderson, raised about $226 million in an October initial public offering. It said at the time it wanted to find a target “whose principal effort is developing and advancing a platform that decarbonizes the most carbon-intensive sectors.”

Hyzon was spun out of Singapore-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies Pte, which has been developing fuel-cell technology for commercial applications for almost 20 years. The startup, which counts Total SE among its investors, makes hydrogen-powered big rigs, buses and coaches.

Hyzon is headquartered at a former General Motors Co. facility in Honeoye Falls, New York. In July, it announced plans for a plant in the Netherlands as part of a joint venture with Holthausen Clean Technology BV. It also has unspecified manufacturing activities with an undisclosed partner in Shanghai, and operations in Australasia.

Hyzon says it already has more than 400 commercial vehicles on the road using its own fuel-cell technology. It expects to deliver about 5,000 fuel-cell-powered trucks and buses by 2023 and is targeting annual capacity of around 40,000 fuel-cell electric vehicles by 2025. In August, Hyzon inked a deal with Australian mining company Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. to build a fleet of hydrogen-fuel-cell buses.

EV companies including Nikola Corp., Fisker Inc. and Arrival Ltd. have agreed to go public through SPAC mergers.

(Adds final paragraph on SPAC mergers.)