Cambridge start-up Neela Biotech has raised £2.1m to scale its AI-guided technology that turns waste into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Neela Biotech, a Cambridge-based biotech start-up, says the £2.1 million in pre-seed funding will enable it to launch a pilot-scale trial of its technology at a biogas plant over the next two years.
Its technology converts food, farm and forestry waste into SAF through an AI-guided, controlled microbial process.
The process converts the waste streams into fatty acids, a critical precursor for HEFA-based SAF production, which could unlock an ‘abundant new feedstock’.
Neela’s conversion process is built on anaerobic digestion – a process which uses bacteria to break down organic matter, such as food waste, that is already running at scale in biogas plants across Europe.
The Cambridge-based start-up believes that deploying its technology into this existing infrastructure, rather than building new facilities, ‘substantially lowers’ the cost required to produce SAF at scale.
Neela says its process is also ‘low-energy by design’, replacing the energy-intensive thermochemical processes used in conventional SAF production with a microbial alternative.
By integrating our technology with existing biogas plants, we can reduce capital requirements, accelerate deployment, and enable distributed, local production.
Using alternative waste-derived feedstocks and existing biogas plants would reduce reliance on fossil fuels and exposure to oil price volatility and geopolitical instability.
Taken together, Neela says this means its new technology has a ‘credible path’ to cost parity with fossil jet fuel at scale.
Deepanshu Singh, CEO of Neela Biotech, said: “Our Controlled Microbial Upcycling process leverages recent advances in AI-driven synthetic biology to convert diverse waste streams like food and agriculture waste into HEFA-compatible feedstocks.”
“By integrating our technology with existing biogas plants, we can reduce capital requirements, accelerate deployment, and enable distributed, local production.”
He continued that the £2.1 million funding round, led by Elbow Beach, will help Neela ‘scale towards our pilot and move us closer to making locally-produced SAF cost competitive with fossil fuel’.
The total £2.1 million round investment includes participation from Ascension, Cambridge Enterprise, Ventures Together and angel investors.
Neela is also part of the IAG innovation program and has secured grant funding from Innovate UK and the Henry Royce Institute.
Commenting on the funding round, Jonathan Pollock, CEO of Elbow Beach, said: “Aviation’s fuel bill is only going one way, and the industry urgently needs alternatives that can scale commercially.”
“Neela’s approach is different as it builds on infrastructure that already exists across Europe, avoiding the capital costs that have held back other SAF players, while its low-energy process gives it a credible route to cost parity with fossil jet fuel.”
