Metafuels concludes funding with 9 million US dollars

(CONNECT) According to a  corporate statement, Metafuels has accumulated investments amounting to 9 million US dollars in its most recent funding round. The climate technology startup based in Zurich, Switzerland, has been working on the development of a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) called e-SAF that is manufactured using renewable energy since 2019.

The funding round was led by Celsius Industries from London, which specializes in accelerating sustainable technologies to industrial scales. Its representative, Michele Tarawneh, is now on Metafuels’ board of directors. The venture capital companies RockCreek from Washington D.C., Fortescue Capital from East Perth in Australia, and Verve Ventures from Zurich were also involved. The existing investors Contrarian Ventures from Berlin and New York’s Energy Impact Partners participated as well.

According to the company's statement, this funding round comes after several technological breakthroughs in 2023 and 2024. This meant that Metafuels and its technology partner, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), could establish an e-SAF pilot plant on the grounds of the PSI thanks to a grant from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy amounting to 4.4 million Swiss francs in 2024. There, the jointly developed aerobrew technology is used to convert green methanol into e-SAF using CO2 from the atmosphere or from other biogenic sources. Aerobrew-e-SAF can seamlessly replace conventional kerosine regardless of the size or type of aircraft.

According to Metafuel, this investment round will "help us demonstrate our production process and advance the development of our first industrial scale projects.” In addition to the demonstration site at the PSI, a production facility is being built in Denmark. More sites are to be announced. ce/mm