United christens UAV Sustainable Flight Fund with US$5m investment in Viridos

U.S. carrier United Airlines (United) is to invest US$5 million from its newly formed UAV Sustainable Flight FundSM. The investment is in the algae biofuel company Viridos. The US$5 million investment will support the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from oil extracted from algae. Viridos specialises in the bioengineering of microalgae and its proprietary technology is able to accelerate the volume of oil that can be produced from microalgae. Currently SAF is made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste. However, in time, it could be made from other feedstocks, including household trash, forest waste, or algae. So far, United has invested in the future production of over three billion gallons of SAF.

Viridos is a biofuel company which is focused on decarbonising industries and it is leading the bioengineering of microalgae. It has already achieved seven-times the oil productivity compared to traditional wild-type algae. This has created an opening for potentially scalable and more sustainable production of algae oil, which could be used to produce SAF. Based on current estimates, the SAF created by Viridos