Newtrace Raises $6.3M to Build Membrane-Free Electrolysers

Newtrace, a Bengaluru green-hydrogen startup, has raised a $6.3 million Pre-Series A round led by HDFC Bank and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, with Aavishkaar Capital, Speciale Invest, Micelio and Peak XV's Surge also participating. Announced around 11 March 2026, it follows a roughly $5 million round in October 2025. Founded in 2021 by Prasanta Sarkar and Rochan Sinha, Newtrace runs a 30,000-square-foot Bengaluru R&D centre with more than 45 engineers and scientists, and it is chasing a specific, unglamorous prize: a cheaper electrolyser.

Why membrane-free

An electrolyser splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity, and it is the single most important piece of capital equipment in the green-hydrogen chain. Conventional designs come in two main flavours, alkaline and proton-exchange-membrane (PEM), and both rely on a membrane to separate the gases and shuttle ions across the cell. That membrane is a cost, durability and supply-chain chokepoint, and PEM systems additionally depend on scarce precious metals such as iridium and platinum as catalysts.

Newtrace's bet is to remove the membrane altogether. A membrane-free architecture, paired with high-performance electrodes, targets the capital cost of the stack directly while reducing exposure to imported membranes and rare catalyst metals. If it works at scale, the saving flows straight into the delivered cost of hydrogen, which is the number the entire industry is trying to push down toward parity with the grey hydrogen made from natural gas.

Indigenous IP versus licensed technology

The strategic angle is sovereignty of technology. Many of India's announced green-hydrogen plants intend to license electrolyser designs from established Western suppliers, which means a recurring outflow of fees and a dependence on foreign roadmaps. Newtrace, alongside Bengaluru's Ohmium, which is building PEM electrolyser capacity and has supplied projects including an NTPC deal, represents the alternative: home-grown electrolyser IP that India owns rather than rents. That matters for the National Green Hydrogen Mission's roughly $1.5-per-kilogram cost target, because licensing fees and imported components are part of what keeps the price high.

The honest caveat is scale. A membrane-free design that performs in a 30,000-square-foot lab is a long way from gigawatt-scale manufacturing, and the figures here are those of an early-stage company still proving its core claim. But indigenous electrolyser IP is exactly the kind of deep, capital-intensive hardware bet that India's green-hydrogen ambitions need, and the calibre of the investors backing it suggests the thesis is being taken seriously.