Visolis: Industry Trailblazer in Sustainable Aviation Fuel

When we say Activate Fellows are reinventing the world, we mean it.

One example is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). While the global aviation industry uses 100 billion gallons of fuel annually, Activate Fellows are leading the SAF industry with carbon-free alternatives, and they’re reaching critical scale-up stages with their companies.

Visolis (​​Deepak Dugar, Cohort 2015) uses synthetic biology to manufacture high-performance chemicals, rubber, and SAF. When Visolis was founded in 2012, there were only a handful of SAF companies, and they had raised a collective total of a few million in capital. Since then, SAF has grown dramatically—by 2024, the number of SAF companies had grown to 59 with $7.2B total industry-wide capital raised.

Visolis is now scaling its domestic manufacturing of critical chemicals like rubber and rocket fuels, bolstered by a recent $2.25M award from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Officials from the DOD biotechnology team recently visited Visolis at its facility in Hayward, CA, where they discussed Visolis’ plans for constructing a large biomanufacturing facility in the United States.

Read the following Q&A with Visolis founder and CEO Deepak Dugar to find out how Visolis became an industry trailblazer—and what’s next as the company approaches its biggest commercial milestone yet.

What impact do you envision for Visolis?

Our vision is to completely transform aviation via decentralized, on-demand production that is 10-100X less capital intensive than a petro-refinery. A petro-refinery is not fit for purpose in places like Hawaii, which remain import-dependent and exposed to supply chain volatility to meet its demand for jet fuel. Visolis can help eliminate these challenges via its technology. 

Globally, that means replacing the 100 billion gallons of fossil-based jet fuel used each year. Visolis' unique higher energy density fuel is complementary to the lower density e-fuels and other SAF approaches, and when blended together enables a 100-percent petroleum Jet-A replacement, with Visolis fuel accounting for up to a thirty-percent share.

“Our most significant milestone is just ahead—bringing our first commercial facility online in 2025 representing a 40X scale-up in just 18 months.”

What have been your biggest successes so far, and where are you commercially?

So far, we’ve secured multi-million-dollar joint development agreements, executed ton-level manufacturing, delivered on-spec products to early customers, and scaled to multi-millions in annual revenue.

But our most significant milestone is just ahead—bringing our first commercial facility online in 2025 representing a 40X scale-up in just 18 months. This facility will enable us to expand revenue by several million dollars, complete final customer qualifications, and conduct full-scale fuel certification.

We also announced a major partnership with Zeon Chemicals to construct a larger-scale SAF and rubber facility to be built in 2026. This collaboration is the result of more than two years of joint development and is now at site selection and detailed engineering stage, a major step toward expanding deployment of Visolis’ dual-use platform.

What were the challenges of commercializing your technology?

One of our biggest challenges was securing partners willing to invest in early-stage scale-up of our rather unusual, but truly low-cost and high-impact technology. The chemical and fuel industries are traditionally risk-averse, so gaining their trust required a combination of strong technical data, third-party validation, and consistent execution.

How did Activate help you to overcome these challenges?

Through the Activate network, we connected with key partners, early investors, national lab collaborators and government stakeholders. Their support also helped us secure several grants, including multiple awards from the Department of Energy and Department of Defense, which were essential for de-risking our scale-up.

“At Visolis, we’re part of this inflection point—scaling up our technology to meet real-world demand and validating our products with customers at commercial volumes.”

What is the most exciting thing happening in sustainable aviation fuel right now?

Scale up! The most exciting development is that the SAF industry is finally moving from pilot to commercial scale. At Visolis, we’re part of this inflection point—scaling up our technology to meet real-world demand and validating our products with customers at commercial volumes.

Read about more Activate Fellows who have moved from the lab to commercialization to defining new industries in Activate’s 2024 Annual Report.