Climate tech startup Spark e-Fuels announced that it has raised €2.3 million ($2.4 million) in a pre-seed funding round, with proceeds aimed at advancing its solution to produce clean fuels to decarbonize aviation and other hard-to-abate industries with renewable energy.

Fuel accounts for the vast majority of the aviation sector’s emissions. While sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has emerged as a key tool to cut aviation emissions, most SAF is currently produced from plant-based feedstock, which can present supply challenges, and may compete with the food chain with and present potential negative environmental consequences, including deforestation and use of arable land that could have been used to produce edible crops.

Additionally, efforts to meaningfully increase the use of SAF by airlines face significant challenges, including the low supply currently available on the market, and prices well above those of conventional fossil-based fuels, with SAF accounting for only around 0.53% of global commercial fuel use in 2024.

E-fuels, synthetic fuels which are often produced with renewable energy as an input, are emerging as a solution to the feedstock and cost barriers of SAF development, but also face challenges, including the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Founded in 2021, Berlin-based Spark e-Fuels has developed a proprietary e-fuel technology aimed at addressing the challenges of using low-cost renewable energy in SAF production and enable the production of cost-effective e-fuels. The company’s demand-responsive and load-flexible e-fuels production solution streamlines and decouples key production steps, enabling direct connection with the lowest-cost renewables, while accounting for day-to-day intermittent availability as well as seasonal changes to renewables inputs, resulting in lower costs while ensuring high output.

The company said that its demand-response technology may also be applicable in the decarbonization of the chemical industry, as its production processes transition towards electrification.

Following the funding round, Spark will focus on building its first e-fuel pilot plant and expanding its team to accelerate technology development and commercialization.

Mathias Bösl, CEO and Co-Founder of Spark e-Fuels, said:

“For sustainable aviation fuel to become the industry standard, production must be both scalable and cost-competitive. Our technology unlocks this potential by integrating renewable energy in a demand-responsive way.”

The funding round was led by climate tech-focused VC investor Nucleus Capital, with participation by investors including Zero Carbon Capital, IBB Ventures, Chemovator, Voyagers.io, and 1.5° Ventures.

Isabella Fandrych, General Partner at Nucleus Capital, said:

“We were drawn to Spark’s ability to integrate renewable energy into chemical production in a demand-responsive way. This approach is not only essential for SAF but has wider applications across the chemical industry, which must decarbonize rapidly.”