The chemical industry runs on carbon, but for the last century, it has sourced that carbon from the ground. The ambition at Twelve is to source it from the air. The Berkeley-based company, which has raised over $1 billion, builds industrial electrochemical reactors that use renewable electricity to transform captured CO2 and water into the chemical building blocks for everything from laundry detergent to jet fuel [Twelve]. Their first commercial-scale plant, AirPlant One in Moses Lake, Washington, began operations this year, aiming to prove that carbon transformation can move from a lab bench to a factory floor [Twelve, June 2026]. For an industry that accounts for roughly 7% of global CO2 emissions, it is a bet on swapping the entire fossil feedstock.
The Electrochemical Wedge
Twelve’s core technology is an electrochemical reactor that performs a modern alchemy. It feeds captured CO2, water, and renewable electricity into a cell containing proprietary metal catalysts. The process splits the CO2 and water molecules, recombining the atoms into synthesis gas, or syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. This syngas is the universal precursor for a vast array of chemicals and fuels. From there, established industrial processes can turn it into ethylene for plastics, methane for heating, or, crucially, long-chain hydrocarbons for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The company brands its outputs under two main lines: E-Jet® SAF for aviation and CO2Made® materials for consumer goods [Twelve]. The wedge is not inventing a new end product, but providing a fossil-free drop-in feedstock for the existing, trillion-dollar chemical supply chain.
From Cyclotron Road to Moses Lake
The company’s deep-tech roots trace back to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Cyclotron Road program, an incubator for hard science ventures [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. Co-founders Nicholas Flanders (CEO), Etosha Cave (Chief Science Officer), and Kendra Kuhl (CTO) emerged from this environment with a prototype that caught the eye of venture firms willing to fund the long, capital-intensive path to industrial scale. Their investor list reads like a who’s who of climate and deep-tech capital, including DCVC, Fifth Wall, Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, and TPG Rise Climate [Crunchbase]. This backing has funded the leap from pilot reactors to AirPlant One, which has an initial production capacity targeting around 50,000 gallons of fuel per year [gasworld]. While a rounding error in the global jet fuel market, it is a critical proof point for the technology’s scalability and economics.
Partners and the Path to Scale
Twelve’s strategy hinges on locking in industrial offtake partners early, de-risking the capital required to build plants. They have secured a roster of blue-chip customers across sectors, each with different decarbonization pressures.
| Partner | Sector | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest | Aviation | E-Jet® SAF for flight operations [Greenairnews] |
| Mercedes-Benz | Automotive | CO2Made® polymers for vehicle components [ClearPath] |
| Procter & Gamble | Consumer Goods | CO2-based ingredients for cleaning products [ClearPath] |
| Shopify, NASA, U.S. Air Force | Various | Pilot projects and material procurement [BusinessWire, 2022] |
These partnerships provide more than just future revenue; they offer validation and a clear demand signal for scaling production. The aviation partnerships are particularly strategic, as airlines face some of the most stringent and immediate mandates to adopt SAF.
The Capital and Execution Cliff
Building industrial chemical plants is famously expensive and slow. Twelve’s reported $1 billion in total funding is a testament to the scale of the challenge [StartupIntros]. The company’s latest disclosed round was a $645 million Series C in September 2024, a war chest for building out its production footprint [StartupIntros]. The risks here are not about scientific feasibility,the chemistry works,but about unit economics and execution at scale.
- Cost per gallon. The central question is whether Twelve can drive down the levelized cost of its E-Jet fuel to compete with both conventional jet fuel and other bio-based SAF pathways. The price of renewable electricity and the capital cost of the reactors are the primary levers.
- Plant deployment speed. AirPlant One is a crucial first step, but the company will need to replicate and scale this model rapidly to make a dent in the market. Permitting, construction, and grid interconnection for multi-megawatt facilities are non-trivial bottlenecks.
- The incumbent. Twelve is not competing against a void. It must beat the entrenched, optimized, and heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry, as well as other SAF producers like LanzaJet and Prometheus Fuels who are pursuing different technological routes.
The company’s answer to these risks is its partnership-led model and its focus on drop-in chemicals. By plugging into existing supply chains, it avoids the need to build entirely new distribution and retail infrastructure.
What the Next Plant Must Prove
AirPlant One is a demonstration. The next facility, and the one after that, must prove the business. The coming twelve months will be about translating the Moses Lake output into firm, scaled offtake agreements and breaking ground on a significantly larger plant. The company’s backers, including infrastructure-focused funds like TPG Rise Climate, are betting that Twelve can navigate the valley of death between a promising pilot and a profitable industrial operation.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the ambition in perspective. The global aviation industry consumes about 100 billion gallons of jet fuel annually. Replacing just 1% of that with Twelve’s E-Jet would require 2,000 plants the size of AirPlant One. The company’s real competition isn’t the other SAF startups on the margin. It’s the global petroleum refining complex, which has spent a century driving its costs down. To win, Twelve must prove its electrochemical process can achieve a cost curve that matters, gallon by gallon, until the carbon in the air is cheaper than the carbon in the ground.
Sources
- [Twelve] Company website and newsroom | https://www.twelve.co/
- [Twelve, June 2026] AirPlant One Opens in Moses Lake | https://www.twelve.co/post/airplant-one-opens-in-moses-lake-america-s-first-commercial-e-jet-fuel-plant-begins-operations
- [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] Company overview and technology description
- [gasworld] AirPlant One production capacity | Source details unknown
- [Crunchbase] Funding and investor information | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/twelve-co
- [StartupIntros] $1B total funding and Series C round | Source details unknown
- [Greenairnews] Aviation partnerships | Source details unknown
- [ClearPath] Automotive and consumer goods partnerships | Source details unknown
- [BusinessWire, 2022-06-29] Series B funding and partner announcements | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220629005242/en/Twelve-Raises-130-Million-Series-B-Financing-to-Scale-Carbon-Transformation-Technology