A London startup converting agricultural waste into green hydrogen and carbon dioxide has raised $5 million to build an industrial pilot plant. Ki 13 says it can undercut the cost structure that has kept synthetic aviation fuels on the margins of a tightly regulated market. The company announced the seed round Monday, led by HICO Investment Group with backing from Burgest, Triple Impact Ventures, GiTV, and Desai Ventures, alongside non-dilutive match funding from Innovate UK.
The timing reflects mounting pressure on European aviation. Under the EU's ReFuelEU Aviation regulation, airlines must blend 2% sustainable aviation fuel starting in 2025, a figure that jumps to 20% by 2035 and 70% by 2050, according to EASA. A separate synthetic e-fuel mandate takes effect in 2030 at 1.2%, climbing to 35% by mid-century. That regulatory scaffolding is creating urgency among producers hunting for cheaper feedstocks.
Ki 13's pitch centers on process economics. The company uses what it calls low-temperature biomass electrolysis to pull green hydrogen and biogenic CO₂ from lignocellulosic residues, the woody leftovers of agriculture and forestry. According to company figures cited by Tech.eu, the process consumes roughly 25 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of hydrogen, half the energy load of conventional water electrolysis. For carbon dioxide, the startup claims 0.3 megawatt-hours per tonne versus the 2,000 to 3,000 kWh demanded by direct air capture systems. Both outputs exceed 99% purity.
Whether those numbers hold at commercial scale is the question the new funding aims to answer. Ki 13 currently operates a five-tonne-per-year hydrogen pilot in West London and targets technology readiness level 6 in 2027, according to its website. The seed capital will finance a larger demonstration plant to validate the technology before deployments with e-fuels producers. The company says it has secured letters of intent worth more than $15 million in annual recurring revenue with European producers working on e-SAF, e-methanol, and e-methane, though it has not disclosed partners or execution timelines.
"We have long held the view that the biggest barrier to scaling green hydrogen and synthetic fuels is not demand, but economics," Christopher Hartnoll, CEO and managing director of HICO Investment Group, told Tech.eu. HICO previously backed Ki 13 at the pre-seed stage and has led other climate and infrastructure software rounds in the UK, including one for Arenko.
The founding team pulls from varied corners of the energy transition. Koji Muto, co-founder and CEO, spent time as a senior engineer at ExxonMobil on what the company has described as a $1 billion hydrogen project in the UK. He also worked at Last Energy, a small modular reactor startup, and NeoCarbon, a direct air capture venture, before earning an MBA from London Business School. Michael Stanton, the chief science officer, holds a PhD in physics and nanotechnology from Cambridge, where his research focused on waste-to-hydrogen pathways. Matthew Howard, the chief technology officer, came from Mission Zero Technologies, a DAC scale-up, where he worked from Series A through early commercial deployments.
Sustainable aviation fuel still accounts for a sliver of global jet fuel consumption, hovering around 0.5% according to the IEA's Energy Technology Perspectives report published in April. The agency has flagged low-emissions hydrogen and e-fuels as critical to closing the gap. Potential customers for Ki 13's output include INERATEC, which secured €70 million in venture debt and grant funding in March 2025 to expand a Frankfurt plant, and HIF Global, which operates e-fuel projects across multiple geographies.
Ki 13 participated in the International Airlines Group's IAGi Accelerator cohort and won a "Startup to Watch" award at the Sustainable Aviation Futures Congress SAFTAs in Amsterdam, according to the event's website. The company graduated from Carbon13, a Cambridge-based venture builder that invested £120,000 at the pre-seed stage in early 2023. It also secured an £899,654 grant from Innovate UK's Investor Partnerships program. After two years based at TEP Birmingham, the startup is relocating to new lab and office space in North Acton, according to a TEP Birmingham post.
Desai Ventures, a climate-focused family office based in India, co-led Ki 13's $1.1 million pre-seed in November 2023, according to the company's LinkedIn. Triple Impact Ventures, an early-stage firm in Vienna, joined the seed round.
"Economics drive meaningful change, and the world needs a radical cost difference in how synthetic fuels and chemicals are made," Muto told Tech.eu.
The assertion is straightforward enough. Proving it at industrial scale is another matter entirely.
