In March it looked like the end of a Dutch dream. Hardt Hyperloop, started by TU Delft students to send pods through near-airless tubes at airliner speed, went bankrupt: losses had mounted and an expected European subsidy never came. Last week the company announced a restart.
The money comes from the American investor GreenRock, led by its founder Cindy Huang, with Perpetuum Ventures, Urban Impact Ventures and several earlier investors. The amount is not public; the sources speak of several million euros. “We want a technology partner that has built, tested, and demonstrated the core technology,” said Huang. “Hardt is that partner.”
What Hardt has built stands in Veendam, Groningen: the European Hyperloop Center, a 420-metre test tube in which about €30 million was invested. In 2024 an unmanned pod made its first successful run there, at 30 kilometres per hour. The goal is 700. A planned three-kilometre track was never built.
The new deal points Hardt towards North, Central and South America, and there is talk of working with HyperloopTT. Closer to home, Germany’s research minister Dorothee Bär wants to spend €100 million on a national hyperloop test line. “With this investment, a new chapter begins for Hardt Hyperloop after a challenging period,” said co-founder Tim Houter.
Whether anyone will ever travel from Amsterdam to Paris in under two hours by tube is still an open question. But a piece of Dutch engineering that nearly ended up in a bankruptcy auction gets another try, and in Veendam the tube is still there, waiting.