- HutanBio
UK’s Clean Growth Fund invests nearly $3 million to accelerate HutanBio’s commercialization
After a decade of research and development in the U.K. and around the world, HutanBio, a biotech company founded by scientists from Cambridge University and based in Cambridge (U.K.) and Malaysia, has secured a £2.25 million (USD$2.85 million) investment from Clean Growth Fund, a leading U.K. cleantech venture-capital fund, to accelerate the commercial use of its HBx biofuel oil and help reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions.
HutanBio is aiming to secure a significant share of the maritime fuels market over the next decade, mandated by the International Maritime Organization to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 (compared to 2008), to account for its carbon emissions this year (2024) and stop using fossil fuels by 2050.
Designed from the outset as a ready-made drop-in replacement fuel for the global shipping industry, HBx will support these mandates.
HutanBio’s HBx bio-oil is a sustainable and scalable high energy density, low-carbon, sulfur-free fuel solution that uses CO2 greenhouse-gas as a feedstock for algae that are grown in special bioreactor farms.
These farms, designed and engineered by HutanBio and controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize yields, will be built on unproductive and nonagricultural semiarid and arid land in countries where there are high levels of sunlight.
Drawing on its extensive global cultivation trials and research work undertaken in Malaysia, HutanBio will provide the algae cultures and expert guidance to set up bioreactor farms around the world.
The biofarms are intended to help increase energy security, provide a major economic stimulus and enhance the local environment.
The company is investigating the possibility of its first biofarms to be located in Morocco and Australia.
Given the need for CO2 as a feedstock for its algae, HutanBio expects to locate some of its bioreactor farms on land adjacent to high CO2-emitting heavy industries.
HutanBio offers these industries, for example the cement industry, with a ready-made and circular carbon capture and use solution while allowing the HBx biofuel to be used in their operations.
HutanBio’s project development approach is through modular expansion to suit market demands, helping to build supplies of HBx in a manageable and sustainable way, the company stated.
Through the development of its HBx fuel oil—10 years of research and a trillion samples screened in what HutanBio says is the world’s largest-ever marine microalgae bioprospecting program—HutanBio has “addressed a series of social and environmental challenges that many other biofuels face,” the company said.
HBx’s production does not use any fresh water and has been optimized to thrive in brackish to very salty environments.
HutanBio said it can bring life to barren-desert landscapes and add to the planet’s photosynthesis.
“It can scale in semiarid and arid areas to remove millions of tons of CO2, cleanly and safely from the earth’s atmosphere,” the company stated.
The science behind HutanBio has been led by three people and who founded the company: John Archer from Cambridge University (now the company’s chief scientific officer); Noor Azlin Mokhtar, originally a doctoral student at Cambridge working with Archer and now the company’s director of operations; and Suhaiza Ahmad Jamhor, who has a master’s degree in biotechnology from Universiti Selangor in Malaysia.
The company’s CEO is Paul Beastall, who has had a career in scaling U.K. technology companies and has been instrumental in transforming HutanBio from a science-based company into a commercial venture.
“Clean Growth Fund’s investment in HutanBio, coupled with the strong commercial interest in HBx now being shown by potential customers from around the world, is hugely exciting and underlines the company’s massive potential,” Archer said. “We have been patient and rigorous in our scientific work to ensure that HBx is market-ready, demonstrating the world-class expertise and tenacity of our team. We believe that HBx unlocks the biofuel puzzle, with the capability to produce a cost-effective biofuel an order of magnitude greater than any other oil crop.”
Highlighting HBx’s commercial opportunity in global shipping, Beastall added, “We have designed HBx from the outset to blend seamlessly with existing infrastructure and supply chains. It requires no engine or vessel modification, meaning adoption of HBx can be immediate and without affecting operational efficiency. Vessel life can be maximized while carbon emissions are reduced without changing ship and port operations, which is crucial for rapid deployment.”
Jonathan Tudor, an investment partner at Clean Growth Fund, said: “The positive impact that HBx can have on today and tomorrow’s world is significant. We know that the use of algae has long been recognized as a promising source of biofuel and for varying reasons many companies have failed to successfully commercialize, but the scientific rigor of HutanBio, the qualities of HBx and the market opportunities it has in the shipping and aviation sectors in particular gives Clean Growth Fund cause for great celebration to support the company’s future growth. HutanBio can be a major disruptor in the fuel-supply market and make a major contribution to the decarbonization of transport and the hard-to-abate heavy industries.”
The investment from Clean Growth Fund will support the expansion of HutanBio’s engineering and business-development teams in Cambridge.
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