Why It Matters: Success in raising a Series A round is rarely straightforward, and for a first-time founder, it’s important to think about the goal of raising capital as ‘why do I need this money’.”
34 million total Series A round of Aether Fuels . Just $25.65 million came in February, while another $13 million and $3.35 million were in the $4 million and $5 million Series A rounds.
Based in Singapore, Aether was established in 2022 and was a spin-out out of Temasek’s deep-tech investment platform, dubbed Xora Innovation, focusing on sustainable fuel technology. Profitable Aether is working to optimize the production of sustainable fuels. With Aurora, the firm owns technology which can convert numerous feedstocks (capturing carbon dioxide, utilizing industrial waste gases, biogas, gasified municipal solid waste, and waste biomass) into aviation and marine transportation fuel. This technology scales its own version of the Fuel from Waste solution, which utilises a proprietary advanced transformation of the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process and is patented on innovations in catalysts, reactors, and process flows to bring the cost down and increase yield.
The capital also assists Aether in expanding its research and development footprint, scaling advanced catalysts and process technology as well as fast-tracking the build-out of a fully integrated 100-gallon-per-day test production facility. A local deal is in place to collaborate with GTI Energy on the creation of an R&D center at GTI Energy’s campus in the Chicago region. This technological infrastructure will contain both a 1.5 gallon per day production line and the new 100-gallon per day plant still being constructed. In addition, the company intends to develop a pipeline of commercial-scale production facilities, with initial projects planned in the United States and Southeast Asia. The goal of the project would be to develop sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) as well as high-value liquid fuels in partnership with select strategic participants.
AP Ventures led the Series A funding round, with support from Chevron Technology Ventures, CDP Venture Capital, and Zeon Ventures. Investors in the round included Xora Innovation, TechEnergy Ventures, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and JetBlue Ventures, who had already backed the company.
Aether’s powerful group of investors of all stripes underscores the promise and potential of its work to provide a bridge toward more sustainable energy solutions for aviation and shipping.
