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12 I o n o m r I n n o v a t i o n s I n c . B C B U S I N E S S . C A S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 5 over $44 million (U.S.) since 2017; among their investors are heavy-hitters such as Shell, Chevron, Samsung and Chinese car manufacturer SAIC Motor. Ionomr's materials are now used by over 200 original equipment manufacturers, or OEMS—that is, companies that make parts and equipment, then sell to other businesses— and their projected revenues this year are $7 million. This year they also made the presti- gious Global Cleantech 100 list for the fourth year in a row. In early 2025, Ionomr opened a development and manufacturing plant in Boston—a company devel- oping similar materials went up for sale and the Ionomr team jumped at the chance to acquire their multimillion- dollar setup for a fraction of the cost. Then in June, Ionomr announced a partnership with Jolt Solutions, a Spanish company that will provide electrodes to help boost pro- duction and reduce costs. According to Dugan O'Neil, vice-president of research and innovation at SFU, Ionomr could play a key role in the move away from fossil fuels and toward alternatives like green hydrogen—to the point when, as the company's technology is adopted by companies around the world, it could displace eight gigatons per year of carbon, or roughly all the carbon from global transportation. "Ionomr can have a very large impact on climate change in the future by pro- viding a carbon-free way to make hydrogen that's cost- competitive," says O'Neil, who adds that the Lower Mainland has long been a hotbed for hydrogen research. "With intermittent renewables like wind and solar, you need technology that's stable and flexible—and if you can do that without chemicals that are about to be banned in large parts of the world, all the better." Still, there are headwinds. In the West—especially the United States—political senti- ment has shifted away from environmental initiatives, and with it many investors. As Ion- omr CEO Bill Haberlin puts it, people are more worried about the end of the month than they are about the end of the world. On the other side of the planet, however, China is seriously moving the needle. Because the country doesn't have a mature electrical grid, explains Haberlin, it has an even greater need for energy storage that can be used out- side large population centres, and Ionomr offers a cost- effective, PFAS-free option. "I see things slipping in the West—I don't think it's forever, but I think we could be dis- tracted for 36 to 60 months," predicts Haberlin. By contrast, he adds, several of the top electrolyzer producers in the world—all of them based in China—have active development programs that involve Ionomr's materials. "China is going to allow us to sharpen our spear, grow and scale, and allow us to hone our manufacturing and our development and our products," says Haberlin, who spent 15 years working in Asia. "So, when the West comes back to life, we'll have the solutions set, which will allow them to become ubiquitous." Haberlin predicts that, by 2035, the marketplace for foundational materials like " It was just fantastic. It was truly a moonshot. Suddenly we had something that just worked, and it lasted for 400 hours. It was considered orders of magnitude better than anybody could do at the time." —Benjamin Britton, Chief Technology Officer, Director & Co-founder, Ionomr MATERIALS MATTER Co-founder and CTO Benjamin Britton at Ionomr's Vancouver lab. His research sparked the firm's PFAS-free hydrogen tech

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