An Albuquerque company making products for the burgeoning hydrogen industry says a new, expanded headquarters facility can help it meet "tremendous growth opportunities" in the year ahead, according to the firm's CEO.
Pajarito Powder, a startup with a pair of hydrogen industry-focused product lines, has, after some supply chain hold-ups, set up shop at a new facility in Northeast Albuquerque. The approximately 28,000-square-foot building, located at the site of a former charter school at 5555 McLeod Road NE, gives Pajarito room to grow on several fronts, Tom Stephenson, the startup's CEO, told New Mexico Inno. Lifeline Building Services serves as the project's general contractor.
The project is valued at $3.11 million, Stephenson confirmed, and New Mexico and the City of Albuquerque put more than $250,000 in Local Economic Development Act incentives behind the company's manufacturing expansion, according to an Albuquerque Development Commission filing from February 2022.
For one, Stephenson said more space means "far greater manufacturing capacity." Pajarito Powder manufactures catalyst products for both electrolyzers — pieces of equipment required to produce hydrogen using the electrolysis, or water-splitting, method — and for fuel cells, or mechanical components needed to make hydrogen-powered vehicles work.
More specifically, Stephenson said Pajarito Powder expects manufacturing capacity for both those product lines to expand by "a couple hundred times" thanks to the new facility. The startup expects its revenue to grow "commensurate" with its manufacturing capacity increase, he added.
To take advantage of that increased manufacturing capacity, the new facility will also give space for additional hiring. Pajarito employs about 20 people right now but is actively hiring for five more, including research and development and program manager roles.
The new facility is a boon for both recruitment and retention, said Michele Ostraat, Ph.D., Pajarito Powder's chief operating officer whom the startup brought on in January.
"We find a lot of people who are interested in Pajarito are interested in us because of our startup energy we have," Ostraat said. "We're a startup, but we're in a snazzier place."
It's been a "phased" move-in, Stephenson added, which he said allows Pajarito Powder to show both where the company is coming from and where it's at now.
"It gives people the sense of our growth and the opportunity," Stephenson said.
That growth is tied in large part to the development of the hydrogen industry, both in the U.S. and internationally. Recent federal funding initiatives, like the U.S. Department of Energy's hydrogen hub program, and overseas efforts in countries like Germany and Japan, point to a multifaceted demand for both electrolyzers on the production side and fuel cells on the consumption side — both sides for which Pajarito's products fit.
While New Mexico and a group of Mountain West states missed out on their own chunk of federal dollars through the hydrogen hubs program, tens of billions of dollars in private investment into hydrogen projects across the country, coupled with continued development in regions that missed out on hydrogen hub money, mean Pajarito has seen "dramatic growth" in demand for its products within the U.S., Stephenson said.
"At the same time, the international demand is continuing to grow as well," he added. "We have both the benefits of what's going on within the United States and what's going on internationally."
Few of the startup's current customers are located in New Mexico, however; Pajarito is "net exporting" its products outside the state. It landed some big-name global investors last year, including Belgium-based Bekeart and Hyundai Motor Co.
What do growing domestic and international markets and a bigger facility mean for future investment opportunities? Stephenson declined to comment on potential and ongoing financing efforts but pointed to large investments in other hydrogen companies — including existing partners Bekeart and Hyundai, as well as another Albuquerque-based company, BayoTech Inc. — as indicators of continued industry growth.
Pajarito, in a sense, can ride that growth as it sells more products and rolls out new ones.
"What's exciting to us is that we're positioned better for investment because of the things that we're doing," Stephenson said. "We obviously have the larger facility, we're meeting the larger market need. That all fits to the fact that there is much more investment going on in the industry right now."
Innovating on future products to meet longer-term demand will be an important part of Pajarito Powder's development going forward, COO Ostraat said. That includes "investing significantly" in research and development and increased analytical capabilities, which would allow the startup to better understand the characteristics of its next-generation catalyzer materials.
Albuquerque-based Lifeline Building Services is the general contractor for Pajarito's facility build-out project. The company "did an amazing job" managing the project, including dealing with various supply chain issues, Stephenson said.
