How Ayrton Energy Is Making Hydrogen Travel Like Diesel
Calgary, Alberta
Hydrogen storage and transportation
2021
2021
Deep tech companies begin inside a research culture, where publishing, presenting and collaborating openly are how the work advances and how credibility gets built. The move to commercial thinking changes what those habits cost. A disclosure that helped a paper can narrow what remains patentable, and a collaboration that made sense in a lab can leave ownership unsettled once a product has customers.
IAC dramatically increased the resources that we had at our fingertips, allowing us to think broadly and deeper about a lot of the work we’re doing.
Companies making that crossing rarely need a lawyer first. They need to know which questions to ask, and when. IAC’s upskilling programs and one-to-one engagement are built for that stage, giving a small team the vocabulary to judge its own position rather than outsourcing the judgment. For Ayrton Energy, working with IAC helped them expand their IP strategy, build credibility with investors, and make plans to grow their IP portfolio.
CEO and Co-Founder Natasha Kostenuk knows there’s always a level of tech risk for early-stage companies, but she says it’s different when “you can say I have a partner in my corner like IAC.” That partnership is helping Ayrton Energy to build relationships in international markets, knowing their IP strategy is sound.
Ayrton Energy was founded in Calgary in 2021 by Natasha Kostenuk and Dr. Brandy Kinkead. It develops a liquid organic hydrogen carrier, which absorbs hydrogen into an organic oil so that it can be stored and moved at ambient temperature and pressure, then released as a gas where it is needed. Because the carrier behaves like a conventional liquid fuel, the tanks, trucks, pipelines and rail cars already in service can carry hydrogen without major modification.
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