HCL & UpLink Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative Challenge

Top 10 Aquapreneurs from Third CHALLENGE

Dhileep Sivam

Aquagga

Aquagga is a leader in PFAS destruction with its Hydrothermal Alkaline Treatment (HALT) technology—a powerful solution for industrial and government sectors that are facing the challenge of eliminating these “forever chemicals” in wastewater. PFAS contaminants are exceptionally persistent, posing very serious health risks to communities and accumulating in the environment, disproportionately impacting frontline communities and emerging as a significant environmental justice issue. Aquagga’s HALT technology, validated by extensive university and field studies, breaks down all PFAS types with >99.99% efficiency, producing no harmful byproducts and complying with EPA standards. Aquagga’s HALT technology not only ensures compliance with regulatory standards but also supports sustainable water and chemical management practices. Each HALT deployment minimizes greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional methods, delivering both health and environmental benefits while enabling industries to adopt responsible, sustainable practices.

Mansi Jain

Digital Paani

"DigitalPaani is tackling water scarcity and building clean cities by enabling wastewater to meet every city’s water needs. 90% of the effects of climate change are expected to reflect through water scarcity, and wastewater is the key to solving this problem as the only source of water which is local and renewable everywhere. Unfortunately, today, 75% of the water treatment infrastructure in buildings and industries is broken. DigitalPaani acts as a doctor for this water infrastructure, telling buildings what’s wrong and what the facility needs, as well as providing the medicine to fix it, whether it’s dosing the right amount of chemicals, automating equipment to function properly, or directing operators on the best next steps all while reducing costs by up to 35%. Today, DigitalPaani helps treat 95+ million litres of water a day, has transformed the water infrastructure in nearly 50 units of India's top companies into high quality and compliant facilities, won awards by Times Group and Niti Aayog, and received investments from leading investors globally."

Dan Angelescu

Fluidion

"Fluidion is a deep-tech company leveraging science and innovation to deliver disruptive technologies for environmental and water quality monitoring. Their water quality analyzers are setting new global standards for outstanding accuracy combined with rapid results availability and remarkable ease of use. They push the state of the art in technology, from highly-integrated microfluidics, to sensor-level integrated AI, to global connected Data Analytics. Fluidion's instrumentation eliminates major limitations of today's standard techniques, enabling effective monitoring of water quality in remote or inaccessible locations across the world, directly in the field, where laboratories are either unavailable or unable to provide adequate monitoring. Beyond technology, Fluidion provides high-level scientific expertise, pushing the boundaries of water science to develop methodologies that better protect public health. They implement advanced water quality monitoring programs and offer consultancy to help others do the same. They create application-specific technologies for global deployment and deliver analytics solutions to interpret data. In short, they are redefining how water quality monitoring will be performed tomorrow. Fluidion's mission is to make a significant impact on society and the environment. Protecting waters and public health are their main objectives, achieved through breakthrough technologies and scientifically proven approaches. "

David Lloyd

FREDsense

FREDsense Technologies is an expert in PFAS analytics. They have developed and piloted the first kit for measuring total PFAS in the field. With deep expertise in portable field kits, they have developed a novel technology that is changing the game for PFAS remediation. FREDsense Technologies have an easy to use, portable device that can report PFAS data in less than four hours. By providing same-day data, they are enabling end users to drastically speed up their remediation projects without having to wait for slow lab analysis. This saves them a substantial amount of time and money. They are already working with many of the major destruction players though their rapid turn around service lab where they provide guaranteed turn around on PFAS testing across a variety of matrices. FREDsense is a leader in PFAS analytics and they are committed to speeding up PFAS testing and remediation.

Sebastián Trabalon

Fungi Life

"Fungi Life is a biotechnology startup dedicated to developing sustainable solutions for industrial challenges by harnessing the unique capabilities of fungi. Founded in 2022, they focus on creating eco-friendly bioingredients such as biosurfactants, enzymes, and pigments to replace petrochemical-based products across various sectors, including cleaning, cosmetics, and bioremediation. Their mission is to drive industrial decarbonization and environmental sustainability through innovative, nature-based technologies. What sets them apart is their proprietary fungal strain from the Xylariaceae family, which offers unique bioactive compounds with significant potential for diverse industrial applications. They have developed a robust biotechnological platform that enables the production of these bioingredients at scale, providing a low-cost, circular approach that supports sustainable supply chains. Fungi Life’s focus on cost-effective, scalable solutions allows us to offer high-quality, sustainable alternatives that significantly reduce environmental impact. Their platform promotes the circular use of resources, contributing to a greener economy. They work closely with industry partners, including multinational companies like YPF Química, to validate and scale their solutions, ensuring they are ready for real-world application. Through their commitment to sustainability and innovation, they aim to transform industries and lead the transition to a more environmentally friendly future."

Isabella Palmgren

Mimbly

"Mimbly is a company that was founded with the purpose to save water(s), both from being misused and from being polluted. This has been at the core of their product development and problems they tackle. They are a hardware & software company led by a diverse and passionate team based in Sweden, where they also design and produce all their products. All data that is gathered is used to spread awareness and further develop their technologies, which gives them an advantage to expand into other industries. Mimbly has already saved over 4,000,000 litres of water and done over 230,000 washes with their customers and these figures increase faster and faster. Moving forward their goal is to have their technologies integrated in many different solutions to have a global impact."

Fajer Mushtaq

Oxyle

Oxyle is the world’s first economical, sustainable, and permanent answer to PFAS contamination. Its breakthrough PFAS destruction solution empowers industrial and environmental remediation companies in their fight against water contamination. The solution don’t just filter or adsorb PFAS, but eliminates it entirely to below detection limits. With 50x lower average energy consumption than other destructive treatments, it is the most energy efficient, cost effective treatment on the market. Established in 2020, Oxyle is on a mission to protect our water from PFAS - down to the last drop.

Patrick Kiely

SENTRY

"The SENTRY team are experts in monitoring water quality. They have developed and are commercializing a new sensor technology that is used to monitor water quality and provide actionable alerts to their clients. The SENTRY team has developed and commercialized a new bio-electrode sensor platform – SENTRY. The SENTRY sensor is unique because every other water quality sensor requires significant maintenance due to biofilm growth. Conventional sensors require a lot of time to clean, have expensive parts that must be replaced frequently, suffer from signal drift, and/or don’t provide real-time information. SENTRY has no moving parts and is built to harness the biofilm present in every water environment as part of the sensing process. With the SENTRY platform the team focuses on providing data that allows for (1) Improved decision making by our clients, (2) allows for improved water quality at their client facilities and (3) allows them to better protect downstream watersheds. The sensor provides a direct measure of the “Consumable BOD (mg/L)” being consumed in real-time by the biomass in-situ in the water environment. The data is communicated as an ‘alarm’ notification if it is outside of normal operating standards. "

Dr. Kathy Meney

Syrinx

With offices in Australia, New Zealand and Europe, Syrinx is a solutions practice that harnesses the power of nature to enable the transition to a sustainable future and a circular economy. For 25 years, the multidisciplinary experts at Syrinx have offered planning, designing and delivery services and nature-based solutions to solve complex problems. Creating visionary solutions through technical rigour, Syrinx acts not only as a consultant but creates innovative products such as EnPhytoBox that help companies and communities work with, rather than against, nature. As the effects of climate change increase and environmental standards shift, we need to adopt solutions that are flexible to meet the changing world. Syrinx continues to shape today for tomorrow.

Dr. Thomas Fudge

WASE

"WASE focuses on treating industrial wastewater onsite, enabling customers to comply with regulations while maximizing bioenergy generation. The platform uses unique biosensing and soft-sensing capability. WASE intelligence software offers 'hands off' operation and delivers actionable insights for maximising treatment efficiency and microbial conversion of organics into biomethane. This approach aims to decarbonize thermal energy demands for its clients. The company is committed to sustainable and economically viable wastewater treatment solutions."

Top 10 Aquapreneurs from SECOND CHALLENGE

Juan Carlos Escobar, Rina Margarita Martinez

Aquakit

Greywater Treatment Technology

AQUAKIT builds greywater treatment technology to drive sustainability and water conservation. Its innovative greywater treatment system for large-scale residential and commercial buildings offers a unique water-saving solution, reclaiming up to 300,000 litres monthly in a single 12-story building. By recycling greywater for non-potable purposes like toilet filling, irrigation, and cleaning, AQUAKIT not only slashes tap water consumption but also minimizes wastewater emissions. With a focus on accessibility, sustainability, and automation, AQUAKIT transforms wastewater into a valuable resource for water, energy, and nutrients, ushering in a smarter, more responsible approach to water management.

Wilrik Kok, Karina Peña

FieldFactors

Rainwater to freshwater source through its BlueBloqs circular water system.

FieldFactors transforms rain into a dependable local freshwater source through its BlueBloqs circular water system. Specializing in climate change mitigation, the company designs and implements integrated solutions to combat urban flooding, drought, and heat stress, fostering biodiversity with green spaces. By storing up to 95% of project site rainwater, the company aids municipal, commercial, and industrial users in saving 20% on discharge measures and cutting drinking water consumption by up to 80%. From design to operation, the interdisciplinary team at FieldFactors ensures seamless integration into the built environment.

Asim Bhalerao, Nidhi Jain

Fluid Analytics Inc.

Monitoring urban water pollution and enabling the diversion, treatment, and reuse of water.

Fluid Analytics is a water analytics company committed to addressing urban water pollution. Employing cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence, the company's platform monitors water infrastructure health, waterway conditions, and the spread of water-borne diseases at scale. With unique mathematical and machine-learning models trained on diverse datasets, Fluid Analytics has successfully deployed solutions, monitoring over 1.3 billion litres of urban water pollution and enabling the diversion, treatment, and reuse of 800 million litres daily. Its SaaS/RaaS business model empowers cities to combat water pollution sustainably, collaborating with utilities, contractors, and engineering firms.

Jaime de la Cruz Gonzales

Kran Nanobubble

Integrable nanobubble hydraulic systems for industrial processes.

Kran is a Chilean nanobubble tech pioneer transforming industrial processes. Its integrable systems, harnessing nanobubbles' unique properties, revolutionize agriculture, water treatment, and aquaculture. Kran empowers farmers with responsible water use, crop health, and increased productivity. In water treatment, it tackles challenges sustainably, addressing wastewater and eutrophication. In aquaculture, Kran enhances concession recovery, shelf life, and oxygenation. With adaptability and scalability, the organization’s innovative approach seamlessly integrates into diverse industries, reshaping the global landscape of water-related challenges for a sustainable future.

Greg Newbloom

Membrion

Treatment and reuse of toxic industrial wastewater.

Membrion develops ceramic desalination technology, offering the world's first ceramic membrane capable of efficiently desalinating water. Specializing in treating harsh industrial wastewater on-site, Membrion's innovative solution eliminates the need for off-site disposal and costly treatments like boiling or chemical processes. Its flexible electro-ceramic membranes recover up to 98% of water, enabling recycling in challenging conditions. With low fouling, oxidizer resistance, and economic advantages, Membrion empowers industrial facilities to achieve sustainability, saving over $500,000 annually and realizing a 12-24 month ROI.

Biplabketan Paul, Trupti Jain

Naireeta Services Pvt. Ltd.

Rainwater Harvesting Technology

Naireeta Services Private Limited (NSPL) is a social enterprise dedicated to eradicating poverty through innovative solutions in the agricultural sector. Specializing in climate-adaptive technologies, NSPL's flagship product, Bhungroo, a proprietary World Bank-awarded rainwater harvesting technology, empowers 125,000 smallholder farmers across 12 Indian states, Bangladesh, Ghana, Vietnam, and Rwanda. NSPL's unique business model combines direct payments from wealthier farmers with subsidies, CSR funding, and grants, ensuring accessibility for all. Its Women Climate Leaders (WCL) programme, staffed by trained smallholder women farmers, provides fee-based agricultural advice, differentiating NSPL in the market.

Taher Mestiri, Amira Cheniour

Seabex SAS

Transforming farming through AI-powered precision irrigation.

Seabex is an agritech startup transforming farming through AI-powered precision irrigation. Its mission is to empower farmers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa with resource-efficient irrigation solutions. Its scalable, sensorless precision irrigation, driven by AI algorithms, optimizes water usage, enhances crop yields, and tackles global water scarcity. The organization is committed to accessibility, ensuring all farmers benefit from its technology. With a core focus on sustainability and innovation, Seabex utilizes global soil databases and diverse data sources to deliver real-time, personalized irrigation insights.

Mulundu Sichone

PYDRO

Self-powered sensing and acting systems for smarter water networks.

PYDRO develops self-powered sensing and acting systems for smarter water networks. The PT1, its flagship product, revolutionizes data transmission by eliminating the need for power supply or battery exchange, offering real-time insights into water network dynamics. PYDRO's turnkey ‘water to data’ solution ensures seamless communication without additional sensors or expert intervention. With a commitment to innovation, scalability, and a unique sensing-as-a-service model, PYDRO empowers water utilities globally, providing unparalleled efficiency and pre-emptive event detection.

Gokul Krishna Govindu, Giridharan Sengaiah, Navaneethan Santhanam

SmartTerra

AI analytics to detect leaks and anomalies across vast networks.

SmartTerra revolutionizes water utilities with cutting-edge AI analytics, reducing water losses and enhancing revenue streams. Its cloud-hosted software, adept at handling intermittent water supply, enables utilities to swiftly detect leaks and anomalies across vast networks. The company’s solution, showcased in successful pilots across India and Southeast Asia, boasts up to 75% accuracy in leak localization and 80% in abnormal meter detection. With a unique focus on city-scale and campus-scale utilities, SmartTerra has secured major contracts, exemplified by its groundbreaking partnership with L&T in Pune, India.

Top 10 Aquapreneurs from FIRST CHALLENGE

Tatiana Alvasio

Kilimo

Paying farmers to save water

Kilimo is a company in Latin America using big data and machine learning to verify, improve, and offset water usage in agriculture. It provides software-as-a-service to help farmers optimize irrigation and sell water offsets to companies that want to become water neutral. Using a unique remote technological tool, Kilimo helps farmers improve their irrigation practices, validate their water savings and market these savings as water offset credits to companies with water stewardship pledges. Kilimo helps farmers across the world reduce water usage by 30%.

David Pong

Wateroam Pte Ltd

Safe drinking water in minutes

Wateroam is tackling the global challenge of contaminated drinking water, especially in rural and disaster-affected communities, with a portable filtration system that converts unsafe water into drinking water in minutes. Its technology works without electricity and can be implemented in hard-to-reach communities for as little as $2 per person per year. It operates on three continents and its products have been deployed in more than 40 countries, impacting over 200,000 people around the world.

Amrit Om Nayak

Indra Water

Decentralized treatment of wastewater using electricity for reuse

Indra water is an Indian company making water treatment systems that recycle domestic and industrial wastewater into non-potable applications. It aims to support the world’s transition to sustainable water management with products that are cheaper, more scalable and more easily deployed than traditional systems. Its solutions are able to recover 95% of wastewater and can be fully automated in order to benefit from smart monitoring and advanced analytics.

Simon Uenzi

bNovate Technologies

Improving water safety with technology

bNovate is a Swiss start-up that aims to improve water safety with technology. It is developing and commercializing simple and effective tools that analyze microbial water quality in as little as 20 minutes. The goal of bNovate is to bring water safety into the digital age with automatic and connected solutions. It makes and sells products and services targeted at industrial facilities and environments.

Aaron Tartakovsky

Epic Cleantec

Converting building wastewater into clean water, energy, and soil

Epic Cleantec is a water technology company based in the United States. It provides ready-to-go systems targeted at large building operators that convert wastewater into treated water for non-potable applications and clean energy. Its products can help reduce water demand by up to 95%, saving building owners hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on their water and sewer bills. Its goal is to shift the water industry toward a distributed, circular approach, where wastewater is converted into a renewable supply of valuable commodities.

Dragan Tutic

Oneka Technologies

Harnessing the power of waves to produce fresh water

Oneka is a Canadian company developing and commercializing autonomous desalination systems that use the power of the waves to produce fresh water. Its mission is to make the oceans the most sustainable and affordable source of drinking water, by using the movement of the sea’s waves to power a pumping, filtration and desalination system. Its desalination units can provide water for between 20 and 1500 people per day depending on consumption. Its solutions provide a source of water that requires no electricity, land-based real estate and generates no greenhouse gases.

Kevin Mercer

RainGrid Inc.

Intelligent Circular Rainfall Retention and Reuse

RainGrid is a Canadian company whose mission is to build a neural networked rain harvesting utility capacity. Its goal is to provide a circular solution to protect watersheds, improve flood and drought resilience and provide fiscal security of water infrastructure. It does so with physical and digital products that predict, capture, store and reuse rainwater on private properties. By creating a network of storage and monitoring systems, RainGrid develops an internet of things for rain collection and storage to more effectively manage water runoff in urban areas.

Olivier Gröninger, Laura-Stocco

Openversum

Providing safe water through micro franchising and engineering

Openversum is a Swiss enterprise tackling the challenge of safe and affordable drinking water by combining an innovative filtration membrane system with micro franchising. Its goal is to provide millions of people in Latin America, Asia and Africa with access to safe drinking water while creating thousands of work opportunities for local entrepreneurs. Openversum has created an affordable all-in-one drinking water filter that removes pathogens, pesticides, heavy metals and micropollutants and lowers the risks of recontamination. At the same time, it trains entrepreneurs to locally manufacture and distribute its filters, creating employment and helping those in need.

Mohammad Aatish Khan

NatureDots Private Limited

AI-powered monitoring for aquafarms

NatureDots is an Indian company enabling remote, real-time monitoring of aquafarms. Its product, AquaNurch, is an artificial intelligence application for inland freshwater fisheries that conducts data analytics and monitoring of aquatic ecosystems. By tracking both water and fish health, NatureDots aims to transform aquaculture based food chains by ensuring healthy fisheries, and in the process has created the world's biggest water data repository and observing system.

Beth Koigi

Majik Water Technologies

Renewable water source for arid regions

Majik Water is a social enterprise that specializes in air-to-water technologies in arid and semi arid regions. Initially operating in Kenya, its goal is to provide the estimated 780 million people around the world who are living without access to water with the opportunity to access clean, safe water pulled directly from the air. It uses solar thermal energy and sponge-like desiccant materials to do this in a low cost, energy efficient way. Its proof of concept can generate 10 litres of water in 24 hours.

About the initiative:

Tackling Water Pollution Challenge, 2024

Challenge Overview