Jamie Edmiston is one of the most well known personalities in the world of luxury yachts. The charming CEO of Edmiston, a company that deals in superyacht sales and charters, is the go-to person for the richest people on this planet when it comes to selling and purchasing uber-expensive pleasure crafts. This year alone, his company has been responsible for the sale of 28 yachts with a combined value of over £1 billion (roughly $1.3 billion). However, Edmiston’s current line-up of vessels for sale includes a truly special megayacht that will significantly increase the company’s revenue when she finds a new owner.
We’re talking about the Feadship Project 821, which is currently being completed in the Netherlands. The 118-meter vessel, launched by Feadship earlier this year in May, is the world’s first hydrogen-powered superyacht. Estimated to be worth $645 million, the clean and green megayacht is so impressive that it inspired Jamie Edmiston to acquire a cleantech startup.
According to reports, Project 821 was commissioned by none other than Microsoft co-founder and prominent climate change activist Bill Gates. However, soon, rumors started circulating that the billionaire had given up the ownership of the megayacht even before it was completed. The fact that the hydrogen-powered vessel is up for sale with Edmiston corroborates the news.
No one knows why Gates gave up on the opportunity to set a precedent by owning the world’s first emissions-free megayacht, which would have immensely helped his image as a climate crusader. Nevertheless, the Feadship megayacht could prove to be a revolutionary first step towards clean yachting, and Edmiston has been proud to be a part of the project since its inception. Seeing an opportunity in its zero-emissions technology, he invested millions of dollars in a promising cleantech company called Cambridge Nanosystem, now renamed Levidian.
Founded in 2012, the company developed the technology to crack methane gas to create hydrogen and graphene. According to Levidian’s official website, the British company aims to decarbonize the world’s most carbon-intensive industries. Its patented LOOP technology can use methane as a source to produce high-quality graphene and hydrogen, which can be used as an alternative fuel source. While the technology is very promising, the initial few years were fraught with challenges for the company. Its previous owners, the Malaysian group Felda Group Ventures, had to write off their investment in 2019. However, a chance encounter brought Edmiston to the company’s doorstep, resulting in a major investment by the luxury yacht dealer.
Speaking to The Times, Edmiston said that it wasn’t one of his wealthy associates who brought him to the cleantech company. It all happened because his car broke down one day. The yacht broker recalls: “There was a guy who lives in the building I live in who said to me a couple of times, ‘Hey Jamie, would you come and meet my friend who makes graphene?’ I didn’t know what graphene was and I was super busy dealing with all the dramas of Covid. So I said, ‘Sure, we’ll do that sometime.’ Then one day my car broke down and this particular guy helped me get it started and at the end of that he said, ‘Would you come and meet my friend who makes graphene?’ By this stage I felt a duty to do it.”
The 49-year-old bought the business in December 2020 and renamed it Levidian. Edmiston had no previous experience of investing in cleantech. However, he immediately saw the potential of the company and its proprietary technology. While high-quality graphene was the more critical product extracted from the process, he was also interested in the hydrogen produced as a waste product. “Without doubt I was influenced partly by what I was doing with this hydrogen boat,” Edmiston says. The company has done extraordinarily well after the infusion of funds from Edmiston. It also raised money from American technology group Baker Huges and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala, raising its valuation to 150 million pounds (around $195 million).
