Gudlyf Mobility, part of Energy Leap’s second cohort of start-ups, is a promising innovator that’s redefining hydrogen storage. Their game-changing technology isn’t just advancing clean energy storage—it could unlock new possibilities across the entire hydrogen ecosystem.
The organisation partnered with Energy Leap to validate its vision, accelerate the development of its cutting-edge hydrogen storage technology, scale its solutions, and make a significant impact in reducing gas transport logistics costs, bringing us closer to a sustainable energy future.
Based in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Gudlyf is revolutionising hydrogen storage with its innovative and high-performance Type IV cylinders. Committed to sustainability and Make in India initiative, the company focuses on indigenous development to offer eco-friendly solutions that reduce gas transport logistics costs while ensuring the highest safety standards.
As India accelerates its green hydrogen plans, reliable storage and transport systems are becoming as critical as production, underscoring the importance of a strong deep-tech hardware ecosystem. Type IV composite cylinders, essential for mobility, industrial use, and distributed hydrogen applications, require advanced materials engineering and rigorous multi-stage testing. However, India’s hydrogen-storage ecosystem remains underdeveloped compared to its production-focused momentum, creating barriers that shape the experiences of early innovators.
What hydrogen-storage innovators face today
India’s clean hydrogen-storage innovators encounter structural barriers that slow down or sometimes halt progress. The most significant of these include:
Policy and industry efforts are primarily hydrogen-production focused: Government and industry efforts have largely centred on electrolysis. Storage, transportation and mobility safety receive comparatively less attention, with fewer dedicated standards and regulatory pathways.
No domestic full-stack testing facility: Pressure cycling, burst, fire, bullet and drop tests-all essential for Type IV cylinders require international facilities or limited domestic options. This extends certification timelines to 18–24 months and raises costs sharply.
Lack of patient capital suited to deep-tech hardware: Venture funding often demands early revenue visibility, while grant or soft-capital instruments remain limited. This creates risk for startups navigating multi-year R&D and certification cycles.
Talent gaps in materials and composites engineering: Expertise required for composite-fibre liners, pressure-vessel design and non-metallic storage remains scarce, restricting manufacturing readiness and iterative prototyping.
Capital-intensive requirement for PESO certification & stringent investment conditions :
- To obtain PESO approval, early deep tech startups must first build a full-scale production facility , an expensive prerequisite that must be set up before certification testing can even begin.
- This creates a heavy upfront capital burden with no immediate revenue pathway. Investors must recognize that PESO certification inherently requires large pre-investment making traditional venture expectations misaligned with realities of hydrogen storage innovation.
- Strategic-investor term sheets often carry conditions more suited to revenue-stage companies such as high IRR expectations, PAT-linked valuation metrics, or rigid CCD milestones. Early deep-tech hardware startups find these terms difficult to meet, delaying access to strategic capital
These ecosystem constraints significantly challenge the pace of innovation and commercial readiness for hydrogen-storage hardware.
Energy Leap’s impact
1st
to back Gudlyf Mobility, along with RICH
7X
support unlocked in 12 months
5
recommendations identified to accelerate growth of similar start-ups
Gudlyf Mobility’s scale-up journey
Gudlyf Mobility offers a representative lens into these ecosystem-level constraints and the progress that becomes possible when targeted support is available. Gudlyf aims to produce globally competitive Type IV composite cylinders that could withstand pressure as high as 700 bar.
When Gudlyf Mobility began its journey in 2022, it operated at TRL 3 with concept-level prototypes and no clear certification pathway. By 2024–2025, the company had progressed to TRL 7, completing 11 years of operational ageing equivalent pressure-cycle tests and delivering key pilot projects.
During this period, Gudlyf Mobility also established a pilot liner-manufacturing capability for composite cylinders and secured close to ₹1.5 crore (USD 167k) in support through grants and early-stage investments, helping the startup navigate critical phases of validation and scale-up.
This journey shows that although deep-tech hardware development is complex, start-ups can make measurable progress when they receive targeted support and access to the right networks.
Role of Energy Leap
Xynteo’s Energy Leap and Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH) partnered with Gudlyf Mobility in December 2024 to accelerate its product development and commercialisation journey. Energy Leap and RICH provided a blended capital package—comprising non-dilutive grant funding and a convertible debenture—along with expert support to shape a tech-derisking roadmap. Energy Leap also provided Gudlyf with technical assistance to identify viable market pathways for the technology and provided market access to de-risk commercialisation.
This support so far has enabled Gudlyf to unlock capital 7X of the Energy Leap grant over 12 months and term-sheets from early-stage investors that could potentially unlock capital for manufacturing scale-up and business development.
“Energy Leap has been a strong catalyst in Gudlyf’s journey. Their hands-on support across technology scale-up, brand visibility and go-to-market planning has helped us accelerate our progress across TRLs, from lab validation to customer pilots. The team brings deep sector insight, structured thinking, and the right industry connections, enabling us to sharpen our product market fit. We value Energy Leap as a long-term partner in building globally competitive hydrogen storage solutions..”
Dr. Ajeet Babu, Co-founder and CEO, Gudlyf Mobility
Enablers and remaining gaps
Some support mechanisms helped Gudlyf navigate early bottlenecks including Energy Leap and RICHs’ support package—capital and mentoring on product planning . These interventions reduced friction in areas where startups often lose time and momentum.
However, core systemic gaps remain unresolved:
- Absence of a domestic hydrogen pressure vessel testing infrastructure
- Lack of a standardised certification process harmonised with global standards
- Investor reluctance toward long development cycles
- Shortages in composites and high-pressure hydrogen systems design engineering talent
These issues limit the pace and predictability with which clean hydrogen-storage innovations can reach market readiness.
Recommendations: Short-term fixes and medium-term structural priorities
To strengthen India’s clean hydrogen-storage ecosystem, Energy Leap recommends a set of short-term and medium-term actions that can be taken:
Short-term:
- Fast-track the establishment of full-stack hydrogen storage testing, validation and certification infrastructure to support early-stage hardware development.
- Broaden policy focus beyond generation to include storage, transport, mobility and safety standards as part of a comprehensive hydrogen ecosystem roadmap.
Medium-term:
- Create a deep-tech hardware financing window offering large patient capital through grants and blended finance to bridge multi-year certification and scale-up requirements, potentially blending capital from Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) fund,
- Adopt investment terms aligned with deep-tech timelines by allowing lower IRR expectations, technical-milestone-based evaluations and more flexible CCD structures.
- Develop specialised talent pipelines in composite materials and high pressure hydrogen systems through targeted academic and vocational programmes.
Gudlyf Mobility’s experience highlights how deeply India’s clean hydrogen ambitions rely on strengthening storage-focused deep-tech capabilities. Strengthening testing infrastructure, patient-capital pathways, clear certification processes and specialised talent will be central to bringing such hardware innovations to market. As these ecosystem enablers take shape, programmes like Energy Leap can continue to provide early support, reduce friction in high-dependency stages, and help hardware-first startups convert technical potential into deployable solutions.
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