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Newtrace is a Bengaluru based deeptech startup that develops and manufactures electrode and stack technology for alkaline water electrolysers used in green hydrogen production. The company was founded in 2021 by Prasanta Sarkar and Rochan Sinha, whose early membrane-less electrolyser prototype was developed in a laboratory at IIT Madras before the founders established Newtrace as an independent company.
The company’s core innovation is VoltaGen, a coated cathode developed through systematic screening of catalyst and substrate combinations. VoltaGen is designed to be dimensionally and mechanically compatible with existing alkaline electrolyser stacks, allowing operators to replace the cathode element without redesigning cell geometry, balance of plant, or control systems.
Newtrace operates from a technology facility of approximately 30,000 square feet in Bengaluru, where a multidisciplinary team works on electrode coating, stack assembly, and hydrogen testing. The company has raised capital across a seed round in 2023 and a Pre-Series A round in 2026, backed by domestic and international investors.
Newtrace’s electrode and electrolyser technology has been deployed with Indian public sector hydrogen producers, and the company has been recognised through national innovation programmes and international climate-tech platforms. The company positions its technology as a contribution to India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission and to the broader industrial transition away from fossil-derived hydrogen.
Newtrace’s work is directly tied to SDG 7 because its core product, the VoltaGen electrode, is built specifically to lower the energy consumption of producing hydrogen from renewable electricity, a central pathway to affordable, clean energy at industrial scale. SDG 9 is relevant because the company represents indigenous, domestically manufactured innovation in a deeptech hardware category, electrolyser components, where India has historically depended on imported technology, contributing to industrial capability building. SDG 13 applies because the company’s stated purpose is to displace fossil-derived grey hydrogen used in refining, fertiliser, chemical, and steel production with a lower-carbon alternative, directly targeting emissions reduction in hard-to-abate industrial sectors that are significant contributors to global greenhouse gas output.
Newtrace’s methodology centres on electrode-level electrochemical engineering rather than full electrolyser system redesign. The company’s R&D process involved systematic screening of more than 1,000 catalyst-substrate combinations to arrive at the VoltaGen coated cathode formulation, an approach rooted in materials science and applied electrochemistry.
The technology is engineered to be dimensionally and mechanically compatible with existing alkaline electrolyser stack designs, meaning the cathode can be integrated as a retrofit component without changes to cell geometry, balance-of-plant equipment, or control systems. This component-level strategy allows existing hydrogen producers to upgrade performance incrementally rather than replacing entire systems.
Manufacturing takes place at the company’s Bengaluru facility, which includes an in-house catalyst coating line, on-site stack assembly capability, and a hydrogen testing lab used to validate performance metrics such as specific energy consumption and current density before deployment. Newtrace has also developed complete alkaline electrolyser stacks and a vertically integrated balance-of-plant platform that combines power electronics, fluid management, and control systems, extending its scope from a single component supplier toward a fuller-stack technology provider. The company holds patent applications covering aspects of its electrode and electrolyser technology, and its stated engineering focus throughout is reducing the specific energy consumption, and therefore the electricity cost, associated with alkaline water electrolysis.
Newtrace operates in the electrolyser component and systems segment of the green hydrogen value chain, positioning itself between electrode material innovation and full-stack electrolyser supply. Its primary customers include electrolyser manufacturers, green hydrogen project developers, and industrial gas and refining companies, with confirmed deployments among Indian public sector energy companies. The company differentiates on its PGM-free, critical-raw-material-free cathode chemistry and on retrofit compatibility with existing alkaline stack designs, rather than requiring new system architectures. Within India’s electrolyser technology landscape, Newtrace is one of a small group of deeptech manufacturers developing indigenous electrode and stack technology domestically, competing alongside other Indian green hydrogen technology developers in a market shaped by the National Green Hydrogen Mission.
Newtrace occupies a focused and technically demanding niche within India’s green hydrogen buildout: the electrode and stack hardware that determines how much electricity is needed to split water into hydrogen. Rather than pursuing a broad hydrogen platform, the company has concentrated on a single, well-defined engineering problem, cathode performance, and designed its solution to slot into electrolyser stacks that industrial buyers already operate. That retrofit-first approach is a pragmatic answer to a real adoption barrier in deeptech hardware, where asking customers to replace entire systems is often commercially unrealistic.
The company’s progression from a university lab prototype to a Pre-Series A round backed by a mix of impact-focused, strategic, and mainstream financial investors suggests it has cleared meaningful technical and commercial milestones, including named public sector deployments. Its national policy visibility further indicates the company is viewed as a credible participant in India’s hydrogen strategy.
The principal open question, one that is common to early-stage deeptech hardware companies generally, is execution at manufacturing scale: translating validated electrode performance into the commercial deliveries the company has said it expects within the next year. Newtrace’s contribution to industrial decarbonisation will depend on how well that scale-up matches its lab and pilot results.
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