Neela Raises £2.1M To Pilot Waste-To-SAF Biotech
Cambridge startup Neela Biotech raised £2.1m to move its AI-guided microbial waste-to-SAF process from lab work into pilot trials at an existing biogas plant over the next two years.
Neela Biotech has raised £2.1m to move an AI-guided microbial process for sustainable aviation fuel feedstocks out of the lab and into pilot-scale trials, UKTN reports.
The Cambridge-based startup is trying to widen the supply base for cleaner jet fuel by using food, agricultural and forestry waste rather than relying mainly on used oils and fats.
The pre-seed round gives Neela a two-year runway toward trials at an existing biogas plant.
Climate tech investor Elbow Beach led the financing with £1.5m, while Ascension, Cambridge Enterprise, Ventures Together and strategic angel investors also participated.
The transaction is built around a specific bottleneck in the aviation fuel market.
Most sustainable aviation fuel today is produced through hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids, or HEFA, which converts waste cooking oil and other fats into fuel.
That route accounts for about 95% of current SAF production, but the feedstock pool is limited.
Neela’s proposed answer is to convert more plentiful organic waste into fatty acids that can feed into existing HEFA production.
Its Controlled Microbial Upcycling process combines synthetic biology with AI to optimise how microbial systems turn waste streams into those intermediate materials.
The infrastructure plan is as important as the biology.
Instead of building a new production network from scratch, Neela wants to integrate its process into anaerobic digestion sites, including biogas plants already operating across Europe.
That would let the company test whether existing assets can support SAF feedstock production while lowering the capital required to scale.
For biogas operators, the model could create an additional revenue line from waste streams that already move through their sites.
For airlines and fuel producers, the attraction is a potentially larger pool of inputs that remains compatible with HEFA infrastructure, rather than a completely separate production pathway.
The cost claim remains conditional.
Neela says the lower-energy microbial process could eventually help produce SAF at parity with conventional jet fuel as production scales, but the company still has to prove the process outside the laboratory.
The upcoming pilot will be the next test of yield, reliability and integration with an operating plant.
Elbow Beach CEO Jonathan Pollock framed the investment around both feedstock availability and infrastructure cost.
He said aviation needs alternatives that can scale commercially and argued that too much SAF technology still depends on limited sources such as waste cooking oil.
Neela CEO and co-founder Deepanshu Singh pointed to the size of aviation demand, saying the world burns 300 million tons of jet fuel a year and lacks enough waste oils and fats to cover that requirement.
He said the company’s process is designed to turn diverse waste streams such as food and agricultural waste into HEFA-compatible feedstocks.
The startup is also participating in International Airlines Group’s innovation programme and has secured grant funding from Innovate UK and the Henry Royce Institute.
The funded milestone is now the pilot, which will determine whether Neela’s lab work can become a deployable route for locally produced sustainable aviation fuel.
