Sheffield startup secures £500k to deploy bioreactors turning brewery waste into energy
This article covers Future Greens, a Sheffield-based greentech startup, which has raised £500,000 to develop on-site bioreactors that convert food and brewery waste into heat and power. The funding, including a £160,000 UK Government grant, aims to accelerate deployment with brewery customers and expand the startup's chemistry and biochemistry expertise, supporting industrial decarbonisation and waste-to-energy efforts in food and beverage manufacturing.
Future Greens, a Sheffield-based greentech startup, has raised £500,000 to develop on-site bioreactors designed to convert unavoidable food and brewery waste into heat and power. The financing combines £340,000 in equity and a £160,000 UK Government grant and is intended to accelerate deployment with brewery customers and expand the firm’s chemistry and biochemistry expertise.
Why it matters
Food and beverage manufacturers face rising energy bills and waste management costs. On-site systems that turn organic waste into usable energy can reduce both operating expenses and supply-chain vulnerability. Future Greens’ claim of a tenfold speed-up on conventional anaerobic digestion, if realised at scale, would shrink reactor footprints and lower effluent handling needs—factors that matter to breweries and other food producers with limited space.
The round also underscores continued government involvement in industrial decarbonisation through grants that target practical, site-level solutions rather than infrastructure-heavy projects.
Inside the product
Future Greens says its proprietary system accelerates anaerobic digestion, transforming organic waste into renewable power up to ten times faster than conventional approaches. That speed improvement allows for compact, on-site reactors tailored to food manufacturers’ footprints.
Initial commercial focus is breweries, where waste streams such as spent grain, yeast and wastewater are generated in large volumes and present an obvious feedstock for energy recovery. Compact reactors could offer breweries a route to resilience by producing heat and power close to point of use, reducing reliance on grid-supplied energy and cutting transport and treatment costs for waste.
Who are the investors?
Who are the investors?
The £500,000 round comprises £340,000 of equity and a £160,000 grant from the UK Government. Lead and participating investors include PXN Group, One Planet Capital, Baltic Ventures, Venture.Community and Lifted Ventures.
Future Greens has now raised more than £800,000 in funding to date. The company is also receiving roughly £100,000 in non-dilutive support tied to regional collaborations with the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and the South Yorkshire Innovation Programme (SYIP) with The University of Sheffield. Those partnerships are intended to link the startup’s reactor development with local manufacturing expertise and applied research facilities.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of greentech venture capital firms in the UK
- Browse our directory of greentech angel investors in the UK
Founder perspective
In the announcement, David Dixon, Co-founder & CEO at Future Greens, said:
Our experience in food production highlighted waste and energy as two major operational costs faced not only by us, but across the entire food industry. Now, we're on a mission to address both through our innovative waste to energy reactors.
In the announcement, Gabrielė Barteškaitė, Co-founder & COO at Future Greens, said:
This funding allows us to accelerate delivery for customers already in the pipeline. We’re starting with breweries, where large volumes of spent grain, yeast, and wastewater create a clear opportunity to improve resilience through on-site renewable energy.
The bigger picture
This funding round sits at the intersection of two growing priorities in the UK and Europe: industrial decarbonisation and circular economy solutions that return value to manufacturers. Smaller, modular approaches to anaerobic digestion are gaining attention because they can be deployed without large-scale infrastructure projects and may appeal to SMEs in food and drink manufacturing.
Future Greens’ work with the AMRC and the University of Sheffield ties the startup into regional innovation networks that aim to translate laboratory advances into factory-ready systems. For UK greentech startups seeking commercial traction, the combination of private investment and targeted government grants continues to be a common route to early deployment.
They've invested in Future Greens
Get to know these greentech investors
Click here for a full list of 7,526+ startup investors in the UK