Global climate technology company Aether Fuels raises $34 million in Series A funding round

Global advanced climate technology company Aether Fuels has announced that it has secured $34 million in Series A funding from a consortium of global investors.

In a statement last Friday, the company said AP Ventures led the round, which also included Chevron Technology Ventures, CDP Venture Capital and Zeon Ventures.

Series Seed lead investor Xora Innovation and other existing investors TechEnergy Ventures, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, Foothill Ventures and JetBlue Ventures also participated.

Aether Fuels was founded in 2022 as a spin-out of Xora Innovation, an early-stage deep-tech investment platform from Temasek.

With this funding, Aether plans to accelerate the scaling of Aether Aurora™, the company’s proprietary technology for producing sustainable fuels for the aviation and maritime industries.

Utilizing technology licensed from Aether’s strategic partner GTI Energy, Aether Aurora achieves breakthrough economic results through a transformed Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process. This is achieved by combining innovations in chemistry (catalysts), equipment (reactors) and process operations to dramatically reduce asset capital expenditure and operating costs while increasing yield.

Furthermore, it is extremely flexible, allowing the conversion of a wide range of abundant carbon waste feedstocks into jet fuel and other liquid hydrocarbons, thus overcoming the supply constraints faced by many other sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production processes.

Aether will use the new capital to further expand its research and development (R&D) infrastructure, enhance its novel catalysts and process technologies, and expand and accelerate the construction of a fully integrated 100 gallons per day (gpd) test production facility, building on the successful operation of an existing 1.5 gpd pilot line.

In addition, the Company will begin developing a pipeline of commercial-scale production facilities, including projects in the United States and Southeast Asia to produce SAF and other high-quality sustainable liquid fuels in collaboration with select strategic partners.

To facilitate this work, Aether and GTI Energy have partnered to establish an Aether Research and Development Center on GTI Energy’s Chicago-area campus, where the existing 1.5 Gpd line and the 100 Gpd facility under construction are located.

This partnership began in 2022 with the goal of building on a gas-to-liquid (GTL) technology program initiated by GTI Energy in 2016.

The Aether Aurora solution leverages key innovations from this GTL program.

Because Aether Aurora is designed from the ground up for feedstock flexibility, it is suitable for projects using e-fuel, biofuel and recycled carbon fuel.

Such projects can efficiently utilize captured carbon dioxide, industrial emissions, biogas, processed agricultural residues and more.

Combined with cost-effectiveness, this adaptability makes Aether Aurora a highly differentiated solution.

“This is a group of financial and strategic leaders who clearly recognize the need to expand the supply of sustainable fuels,

“However, unless we dramatically increase the capacity to produce these fuels, supply will remain severely constrained and the transition will be slow, if not impossible,” said Conor Madigan, CEO of Aether.

“We are addressing this very problem with a groundbreaking, scalable solution that includes novel chemistry, equipment and process flows to simplify the conversion process while enabling maximum carbon flexibility.

“The result: more products at significantly lower investment costs than existing approaches,” he added.

He also said that the investors’ decision shows their support for Aether’s unique approach due to their extensive knowledge and experience in the industry.

“We look forward to benefiting from their expertise in further implementation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kevin Eggers of AP Ventures said Aether is characterized by an elegant and innovative technology approach that offers superior economics.

It was noted that Aether has assembled an exceptional team of energy experts, business leaders and serial entrepreneurs.

“Their differentiated go-to-market strategy and disciplined execution are based on a shared track record of delivering tens of billions of dollars in energy and fuel projects.

“Aether is evolving rapidly and we are excited to support the company’s growth,” he added.

Aether Fuels envisions a carbon neutral world enabled by its groundbreaking technology for the sustainable production of liquid fuels.

The company develops highly scalable solutions that improve the unit costs of producing sustainable fuels for aviation and maritime shipping.

The main offices are in the USA and Singapore.

Temasek supports Australian environmental technology company Samsara Eco with US$65 million