Decarbonization startups win top prizes at The Liveability Challenge 2026 grand finale

Metha8 and YAMA, start-ups delivering scalable decarbonization solutions across diverse and hard to-abate sectors, won the top prize of S$1 million each in catalytic grant funding at The Liveability Challenge (TLC) 2026 Grand Finale.

The two start-ups beat six other finalists — selected from a record-breaking 1,500 submissions across more than 100 countries — to take home Asia’s most competitive climate tech prizes. The Grand Finale also marked TLC’s largest catalytic funding pool to date, with up to S$4.3 million awarded to these disruptive deep tech start-ups.

Metha8 has built a new way to generate reliable, clean electricity around the clock, converting methanol into power at 60% efficiency, or twice the output of conventional generators from the same amount of fuel with none of the harmful emissions.

Meanwhile, YAMA developed a cost-viable solution to capture emissions from gas turbines that power much of the world’s electricity grid, which works at the low CO₂ concentrations that conventional approaches struggle with, deliver up to 50% lower costs, and is compact enough to bolt onto existing infrastructure without modification.

“There’s so much potential, especially in Southeast Asia, to bring about bio-methanol production, and because our technology enables people to extract two times more power from every barrel of methanol that’s produced, we will be a catalyst to accelerate the energy transition,” said Zhaotan Xiao, CEO for Metha8.

“It’s really exciting [to win the grand prize] because it means that we will develop locally, so I’m very happy for that. I am also really impressed by the[…] people that really want to make something for the planet. This is what drives me every day, so I’m happy to be surrounded by people that I trust can make change,” said Aurélie Gonzalez, founder and CEO of YAMA.

Metha8 also secured the decarbonization development funding from A*STAR.

Finally, an additional S$100,000 investment prize was awarded to YAMA by strategic partner CarbonFix, S$100,000 investment prize awarded to SPACECOOL by strategic partner Kibo Invest and a S$100,000 grant awarded to Endo Enterprises by strategic partner Enterprise Singapore.

UP Catalyst from Estonia, which works on the utilization of flue gas to produce battery-grade car bon materials at a lower cost, won the popular vote.

This year’s TLC winners were selected after a competitive and rigorous judging session, with the eight finalists pitching their solutions live at the Grand Finale, a partner event of Ecosperity Week 2026 by Temasek and held at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

Established in 2018, TLC, a global crowdsourcing platform presented by Temasek Foundation and organized by Eco-Business, with the decarbonization theme co-presented by A*STAR, has grown to become Asia’s largest sustainability solutions platform, supporting the commercialization of innovative technologies from the lab to market.

To date, TLC has attracted thousands of ap plications globally, short-listed and incubated 56 start-ups and deployed more than S$18 million in catalytic funding to help these start-ups who have gone on to raise hundreds of millions more.

SparkUp is BusinessWorld’s multimedia brand created to inform, inspire, and empower the Philippine startups; micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); and future business leaders. This section will be published every other Monday. For pitches and releases about startups, e-mail to bmbeltran@bworldonline.com (cc: abconoza@bworldonline.com). Materials sent become BW property.