Fuel cell company, Intelligent Energy, has been valued at $1.1 billion

The British hydrogen fuel cell company Intelligent Energy has floated on the London Stock Exchange at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The firm raised $69 million in the Thursday IPO for 8.8% of its shares, along with $27 million from Singaporean wealth fund GIC, which now owns around 10 percent of the firm. IE will use the money to sell backup power units for cellular base stations in India, and to support the launch of its Upp personal energy generator, according to the Financial Times. Early reviews suggest one Upp hydrogen cartridge can charge a mobile device 5 times. IE, which has been developing its technology for 13 years, also plans to make fuel cells for vehicles.

Shares in Intelligent Energy dropped on their debut on the London market on Friday after the fuel cell company raised 55 million pounds ($94 million) to roll out technology to power mobile phone base stations and in chargers for smartphones. Shares in the stock were trading at 300 pence at 1255 GMT, 40 pence or 12 percent, below the 340 price they listed at. The funds were raised by the issue of 16.5 million new and existing shares. Existing shareholder Singapore’s wealth fund GIC had also exercised warrants for shares, raising a further 16 million pounds, the company said. Chief Executive Henri Winand said about half of the funds would be used to grow its distributed power generation business, which replace small diesel generators in powering mobile phone towers in India. “One of our contracts is for up to 4,000 cell towers, that’s serving a population equivalent to that of Greater London,” he said. “If you think of it in the Indian market context in which we operate, that’s less than 1 percent of the total market. There’s plenty to go after and we need capital for that.”