Aether Fuels, a climate technology company, has raised $8.5m in pre-Series A financing via convertible notes.
The global syndicate includes JetBlue Ventures, the corporate venture capital (CVC) division of JetBlue, as well as TechEnergy Ventures (the CVC division of the Techint Group), Doral Energy Tech Ventures (the CVC division of Doral Energy), Foothill Ventures, and existing investor, Xora Innovation, according to a news release.
Aether makes sustainable fuels to enable large industries like aviation and ocean shipping to achieve net zero emissions. The fuel is made from low-cost and abundant waste carbon streams, such as captured carbon dioxide, industrial waste gases, municipal solid waste, agricultural residues, and waste biomass. Aether’s novel process combines feedstock flexibility with maximum yield and slashes plant capital costs, enabling dramatically better unit economics while also meeting stringent sustainability criteria, according to the news release.
Aether will use the funds to accelerate the development and scale-up of its proprietary production technologies, expand its demo facility in Chicago, and grow the global team.
“We are grateful to our investors for their confidence in our technology approach and scalable global business strategy,” said Aether CEO Conor Madigan. “Their support caps a year of breakthroughs that validated our technology and crystallized our roadmap to commercialization. In addition, we appointed experienced sustainable fuel executives to key R&D, operations, and engineering leadership roles in the U.S. and Singapore, and started planning for manufacturing scale-up.”
Established in 2022 as a spin-out of Xora Innovation, a deep-tech early-stage investment platform of Temasek, the company maintains principal offices in the U.S. and Singapore.
