Metha8 and YAMA win S$1M each at Asia's largest climate tech challenge
What's the deal? Two startups — Singapore's Metha8 and France's YAMA — each won S$1M in catalytic grant funding at The Liveability Challenge (TLC) 2026 Grand Finale, Asia's largest crowdsourcing platform for climate solutions. The pair beat six other finalists drawn from a record 1,500 submissions across more than 100 countries.
Metha8 converts methanol into clean electricity at 60% efficiency — twice the output of conventional generators — with zero harmful emissions. YAMA has cracked a long-standing problem in carbon capture: making it work cost-effectively on gas turbines, delivering up to 50% lower costs in a compact, bolt-on design.
The Grand Finale awarded up to S$4.3M in total, TLC's largest catalytic funding pool to date. Additional S$100,000 prizes went to YAMA (from CarbonFix), SPACECOOL (from Kibo Invest), and Endo Enterprises (from Enterprise Singapore). Estonia's UP Catalyst won the popular vote for its work turning flue gas into battery-grade carbon materials.
Why now? Climate tech investing in Southeast Asia hit a six-year low in the first half of 2025, with just 229 deals and US$1.85B deployed. Capital is shifting toward later-stage projects with proven business fundamentals, making early-stage grant funding like TLC's increasingly vital for deep tech startups.
The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) also committed up to S$2M annually for three years — TLC's largest catalytic funding injection from a single partner to date. Metha8 secured A*STAR's decarbonisation development funding on top of its grand prize.
What could go wrong? Both winners face the classic deep tech scaling challenge. Metha8 needs affordable bio-methanol supply chains to fulfil its promise, particularly in Southeast Asia where production infrastructure is still nascent. YAMA must prove its carbon capture technology works reliably across different gas turbine configurations in real-world conditions.
Grant funding also doesn't replace equity investment. With the regional venture climate cooling, converting early traction into sustainable commercial operations will be the real test.
The signal: When private capital retreats from early-stage climate tech, public and philanthropic mechanisms step in. TLC's growing funding pool — and A*STAR's multi-year commitment — reflect a deliberate effort to keep the pipeline of hard-to-abate decarbonisation solutions alive during a venture downturn. The two winners target sectors (baseload power and gas turbine emissions) where incumbents have few clean alternatives, suggesting the market is maturing beyond solar and wind into harder industrial problems.
Read more: temasekfoundation.org.sg
