Berlin-based Spark e-Fuels, an aviation focused startup innovating with its e-fuel technology, has announced a €2.3 million pre-Seed round in order to overcome existing barriers to using cheap renewable energy in production and increasing fuel yields.
The round was led by Nucleus Capital and accompanied by Zero Carbon Capital, IBB Ventures (the DeepTech and ClimateTech investment arm of Investment Bank Berlin), Chemovator, Voyagers.io, and 1.5° Ventures. The round also included participation from business angels such as former executives from Shell, Lufthansa, BP, Siemens Energy, and McKinsey, who bring expertise in energy, aviation, and industrial innovation.
With the funding, Spark will build its first e-fuel pilot plant and expand its team to accelerate technology development and commercialisation.
“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,” said Dr Mathias Bösl, CEO and Co-founder of Spark e-Fuels.
Founded in 2021 by Dr Mathias Bösl, Julia Bauer, and Arno Zimmermann, Spark is developing sustainable aviation fuel production with its proprietary, demand-responsive, and scalable e-fuel technology. By enabling cost-effective manufacturing powered by renewable energy, Spark looks to accelerate the transition to net-zero aviation and driving broader industrial decarbonisation.
With the aviation industry facing increasing pressure to decarbonise, Spark is addressing what it believes is one of the sector’s biggest challenges—scaling cost-effective e-fuel production to meet the surging demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
According to Spark, renewable energy as a key pathway to producing SAFs and reducing aviation emissions is not a new concept, but attempts to utilize it in the past have struggled. The intermittent availability of wind and solar, which have become the fastest-growing and most cost-effective energy sources, has proven challenging for conventional e-fuel production processes.
Spark’s technology is reportedly overcoming the barrier of intermittent renewable energy with patented production processes that streamline and decouple key production steps, enabling a scalable and cost-efficient SAF solution.
Unlike conventional methods that rely on continuous electricity and hydrogen supplies, Spark’s approach accounts for day-to-day intermittent availability as well as any seasonal changes to these inputs, significantly cutting costs while ensuring a high production output. This innovation also reduces the need for expensive hydrogen storage or grid infrastructure, making e-fuels a viable alternative to fossil kerosene.
Beyond aviation, Spark’s technology plays a crucial role in decarbonising the broader chemical industry. Chemical production is currently the second-largest industrial GHG emitter after steel. As chemical production transitions toward electrification, demand response will be critical to helping the sector meet the ambitious goal of reducing energy-related emissions to zero by 2050.
A €48.2 billion investment pipeline into SAFs is a powerful indicator of market confidence, underscoring the recognition of SAF as a commercially viable, long-term solution to meeting global emissions targets.
“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,” added Isabella Fandrych, General Partner at Nucleus Capital.
In addition to this funding round, Spark e-Fuels has won grants totaling roughly €300k.
By enabling cost-effective manufacturing powered by renewable energy, Spark is accelerating the transition to net-zero aviation and helping drive broader industrial decarbonisation.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/02/spark-e-fuels-tackles-renewable-energy-in-the-aviation-and-chemical-industry/
