Founders: Dennis Doucet, Greg Perkins and Grant Bollaert

Australia imports more than 90 per cent of its jet fuel, a vulnerability laid bare by the recent Middle East conflict. One Brisbane startup wants to close that gap with the contents of your waste bin.

Wildfire Energy, a climate-tech firm founded in 2016 that converts unsorted household waste into gas for refining into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), has raised $5.15 million AUD. The round pairs a $2 million injection from Climate Tech Partners, an aviation "sidecar" co-funded by Qantas and Airbus, with another $3.15 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

Its edge, per co-founder and CTO Dennis Doucet, is that its process needs no sorting, pre-treatment or clean feedstock. The capital funds Wildfire's first commercial plant in Brisbane, built as a modular unit that will then be licensed to larger developers. Wildfire is currently operating a pilot plant.

SAF currently meets under 1 per cent of global aviation demand at roughly three times the cost of conventional fuel. You can subscribe to investor updates for Wildfire Energy here.