Metafuels announces $24-MM funding round to bring its SAF to market
Global sustainable aviation fuel production must increase more than 150-fold by 2050 to meet projected aviation demand – a scale that bio-based fuels alone cannot deliver. Metafuels, a Swiss aviation technology company, is addressing this challenge with a synthetic methanol-to-jet technology designed to unlock the volumes, economics, and deep lifecycle emissions reductions that aviation will need over the long term. Today, the company announced a $24-MM funding round as its aerobrew product moves towards market introduction.
The round is led by UVC Partners, with strong participation from existing investors including Energy Impact Partners (EIP), Contrarian Ventures, RockCreek, Verve Ventures, and Fortescue Ventures. The financing underscores investor confidence in Metafuels’ move from breakthrough technology to first-of-a-kind commercial plants and a repeatable industrial model.
The new capital will drive the realisation of Metafuels’ commercial projects – advancing flagship facilities toward final investment decisions and implementation, while laying the strong engineering, delivery, and organisational foundations needed for multi-plant deployment across Europe and beyond as SAF mandates gain momentum. This includes progressing facilities through front-end engineering and design (FEED), as well as commercial and financial project development activities.
Metafuels is currently preparing its methanol-to-jet demonstration plant at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland for operation, while advancing Turbe, its first commercial e-SAF facility in the Port of Rotterdam. Turbe is intended to be the initial commercial deployment of the aerobrew technology and a blueprint for future large-scale plants aligned with ReFuelEU Aviation and emerging global mandates from 2030 onward.
Decarbonising the aviation sector remains a critical challenge. The sector accounts for over 2% of global CO₂ emissions – some 800 million tonnes. When accounting for additional greenhouse gases and complex climate co-factors resulting from the nature and altitude of emissions, the sector’s total contribution to global warming rises to approximately 3.5%.
Methanol-to-jet: A pathway designed for scale. Metafuels focuses on the methanol-to-jet route to sustainable aviation fuel, a synthetic pathway that converts renewable methanol into drop-in jet fuel. Renewable methanol can be produced either from sustainable biomass or by using renewable electricity and water to make green hydrogen, which is then combined with captured carbon – making methanol one of the most scalable intermediates available for aviation decarbonisation.
Metafuels’ differentiator is cost leadership, achieved through the ability to convert e-methanol into e-SAF with a significantly higher yield, ensuring a more efficient and cost-effective process. Metafuels’ signature e-SAF, aerobrew, can replace conventional kerosene regardless of the size, type of aircraft, and short-haul or long-haul flights. Metafuels’ fuels are fully compatible with existing aircraft, engines and airport infrastructure.
Compared with today’s dominant SAF pathway – hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), which relies on constrained supplies of waste oils and fats – methanol-based e-SAF is not limited by feedstock availability. As a result, methanol-to-jet is widely regarded as a critical pathway for meeting long-term SAF demand, particularly as blending mandates rise sharply from 2030 onward.
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