Imperial and Tanaka spin-out listed on Stock Exchange

Ceres Power, the Sussex-based developer of revolutionary fuel cell technology is listed on the stock exchange.

Ceres Power , an Imperial spin-out benefiting from Tanaka's business expertise, becomes the second UK fuel cell company to be listed on the Stock Exchange. The initial public offering values the company at over £66 million.

Ceres, based on technology developed at Imperial, produces fuel cells that generate heat and power without relying on hydrogen. These cells would form the basis of a revolutionary heat and power boiler that allows householders to produce their own electricity and hot water from domestic gas supplies. These fuel cell systems are expected to produce substantial energy savings for users and will reduce CO2 emissions.

But the initial business expertise that set the technology on the road to success was that of Bruce Girvan and Steve O'Dea, two MBA students at Tanaka Business School.

Bruce and Steve had both taken the entrepreneurship elective in furtherance of their short-term ambition: to win the prestigious European Business Plan competition. They were seeking a real world technology on which to base their business plan when they met Professor Brian Steele. Professor Steele was the first to patent the lithium-ion battery, the same technology that powers our mobile phones today. Unfortunately, this was back in the 1960's, and Professor Steele sold the patent for a minute sum long before the application for the technology was invented.

However, by the 1990s, now Emeritus Professor of Imperial's Materials Department, Steele had another project in mind, one he had spent 10 years researching with his colleagues, Professors Nigel Brandon, John Kilner, Alan Atkinson and Bob Rudkin. The concept: a revolutionary fuel cell that would draw its energy from a chemical reaction.

Professor Steele had vision but he knew, through hard won experience, that he also needed people with the business expertise to turn his technology into a multi-million pound global business. The two eager MBA students gained his confidence, even more so when they won the European Business Plan competition that year in Barcelona. They were cheered on by 25 of their fellow students who had paid their own fares to Spain to support the Tanaka team. The pair returned to new jobs with the fledgling company, Bruce as Technical Marketing Manager, Steve as Operations Manager.

This week's landmark Stock Exchange listing is a further endorsement of what can happen when Imperial's world-beating research teams up with Tanaka's business expertise.