The Water Council and Wis. Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch announced today the fourth round of winners of the BREW (Business. Research. Entrepreneurship. In Wisconsin.) Accelerator program during a special ceremony at the ninth annual Water Summit in Milwaukee.
Six startups were chosen to participate in the fourth year of the accelerator program:
- CORNCOB, Inc. (Wis.): Ludek Zapotek, Doug Hwang and Dick Davie: CORNCOB has invented a disc membrane filter that uses less energy, requires minimal pretreatment and self-cleans during operation.
- DMR International (Ill.): Rick Latella and Marc Carson: DMR has engineered the NOVEX-AMG family of additive systems that have demonstrated solutions for water filtration systems by using environmentally responsible materials.
- Energy Tech Innovations (Wis.): Bryan Johnson: Energy Tech is developing a water-based gas treatment method that will convert biogas into renewable natural gas, a greenhouse gas neutral fuel.
- MetaMateria (Ohio): Tim Marth and Dr. Dick Schorr: MetaMateria cleans water using nano-enhanced materials that address challenges in water purification, while also recovering phosphorous and other reusable contaminants.
- Smart Waters (BC, Canada): Jamie Gordy and Rupert Whiting: Smart Waters increases city resilience by harvesting rainwater and holding it indefinitely in order to provide reserves for all municipal water needs.
- WISRAN (Calif.): Arsalan Lodhi and Arsala Khan: WISRAN provides real-time Business Intelligence Services for smart water grids to manage non-revenue water. The primary focus is on water-loss prediction by aggregating and federating sets of data collected from disparate data sources.
Two Honorable Mentions were recognized as well:
- Ark Labs (Ala.): Mack Cornwell and Robbie Hills
- HelioPure (France): Jean-marc L‘Heuillier and Timothee Pasqualini
The BREW Accelerator funds water technology startups with commercialization potential, with the goal of launching each portfolio within 24 months. The accelerator pairs a water-focused startup community with resources of Milwaukee’s World Water Hub to help entrepreneurs from around the world accelerate results.
BREW winners receive up to a $50,000 equity investment, accelerator space in the Global Water Center, business training through the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Institute for Water Business, mentorship from water industry experts, investor guidance and much more.
BREW has worked with 20 water technology startups to date and recently committed to launching 75 more over the next five years.
The previous round of BREW startups also graduated during the ceremony, including entrepreneurs from the first-ever BREW Corporate Accelerator in partnership with Veolia. The second year of BREW Corporate Accelerator was announced yesterday in partnership with A. O. Smith Corporation. For more information, visit www.brewcorporate.com.
Source: The Water Council
