Aether Fuels secures $34 million in Series A financing

Aether’s CEO Conor Madigan in front of a section of a 100-gallon-per-day test production facility built by strategic partner GTI Energy at its Chicago-area campus. Aether will use a portion of the new funds to expand this test production facility to carry out a fully integrated 100 gpd demonstration of its proprietary Aether Aurora solution. (Photo: Aether Fuels)

Aether Fuels announced June 28 that it has secured $34 million in Series A financing from a syndicate of global investors. 

AP Ventures led the round, which also includes 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.

With this financing, Aether plans to accelerate the scale up of Aether Aurora™, the company’s proprietary technology to create sustainable fuels for the aviation and ocean-shipping industries.

Aether Aurora, which leverages technology licensed from Aether’s strategic partner GTI Energy, delivers breakthrough economics via a transformed Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process by combining innovations in chemistry (catalysts), equipment (reactors), and process flows to slash plant investment and operating costs, while simultaneously driving up yield, according to Aether Fuels.

It is also highly flexible, enabling the conversion of a wide range of abundant waste-carbon feedstocks into jet fuel and other liquid hydrocarbons and therefore overcomes the supply constraints faced by many other sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production processes, Aether Fuels stated.

“We are pleased to add Aether to our portfolio of climate companies, and delighted to join this impressive syndicate,” said AP Ventures’ Kevin Eggers. “Aether stands out with an elegant and innovative technology approach that delivers superior economics. Aether has assembled an exceptional team of energy experts, business leaders and serial entrepreneurs. Their differentiated go-to-market strategy and disciplined execution are informed by a collective record of building energy and fuel projects worth tens of billions of dollars. Aether is advancing at pace, and we are excited to support their growth.”

In welcoming the new investors, Aether CEO Conor Madigan also recognized the existing investors for their enduring support.

“This is a group of financial and strategic leaders that see clearly the need to expand the supply of sustainable fuels,” Madigan said. “However, without dramatically scaling the capacity to produce the fuels, supply will remain seriously constrained, and the transition will be slow, if not impossible. This is precisely the problem we address with a disruptive scalable solution that encompasses novel chemistry, equipment and process flows to simplify the conversion process, while enabling maximum carbon flexibility. The result—more product at vastly lower capex costs than existing approaches.”

Aether will use the new capital to further expand its world-class research and development (R&D) infrastructure, scale up its novel catalysts and process technology, and expand and accelerate the construction of a fully integrated 100-gallon-per-day (gpd) test production plant that builds 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 that include projects in the U.S. and Southeast Asia to produce SAF and other high-value sustainable liquid fuels, in collaboration with select strategic partners.

To facilitate this work, Aether and GTI Energy have partnered to establish an Aether R&D center within GTI Energy’s Chicago-area campus, where the existing 1.5 gpd line, and the 100 gpd plant under construction, are located.

This partnership began in 2022 seeking to build on a gas-to-liquid (GTL) technology program initiated by GTI Energy in 2016.

The Aether Aurora solution leverages critical innovations from that GTL program.

Because Aether Aurora was engineered from the ground up for feedstock flexibility it is suitable for eFuels, biofuel, and recycled-carbon fuel projects.

Such projects can efficiently consume captured carbon dioxide, industrial waste gases, biogas, treated agricultural residues and more.

When combined with its cost efficiency, this adaptability establishes Aether Aurora as a highly differentiated solution, Aether stated. 

“With their deep knowledge and experience in the industry, our investors’ decision indicates their support of Aether’s unique approach,” Madigan added. “We look forward to leveraging their expertise as we continue to execute.”