DRIFT Energy gains foothold

DRIFT Energy wins ‘2025 Startups 100 | Sustainability award’ with AI-controlled catamarans that seek out the best wind to make hydrogen. The bold concept is gaining a financial foothold.

The company was founded in 2021 at the height of the Corona crisis. For several years, it has been seeking publicity mainly digitally with a revolutionary plan: generate electricity while sailing and convert it directly into liquid hydrogen using electrolysis. And that with large catamarans that sail routes across the ocean where there is optimal wind to ‘catch’. Guided by weather models, weather forecasts and AI.

Founder Ben Medland likes to tell the story of walking past a stationary wind turbine with his infant son. “Daddy, why is that wind turbine not moving?” the little man asked. And so the idea of making power generation follow the weather was born.

The DRIFT concept initially met mostly scepticism. That changed when DRIFT equipped two small hydrofoil catamarans with a working test rig and showed off with it at SailGP events.

In 2024, DRIFT raised 4.65 m₤ (about 5.6 million euros) with a seed funding campaign to build its first vessel in 2025. In December, DRIFT won the Monaco Prize for Innovation at the Monaco Hydrogen Forum.

In January 2025, DRIFT achieved 11th place on the UK 2025 Startups 100 list of most innovative startups and was winner in the sustainability category.

There will now be room to build a first large catamaran, but also to think about the future. DRIFT does not immediately think of competing with large-scale H2 production near wind farms. DRIFT suspects that e.g. remote small island states could be an outlet. For such countries, it is difficult and expensive to set up a reliable green energy supply.

Sources: drift.energy and startups.co.uk

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