Imagine H2O Announces 2018 Accelerator

An independent panel of industry experts and investors identified an elite group of startups to participate in Imagine H2O’s 2018 Accelerator. Over 200 companies from 36 countries applied to the organization’s 9th annual program.

Through the evaluation process, Imagine H2O’s network of experts collectively provided more than 2,500 comments to the applicants — underscoring the organization’s efforts to advance informed innovation in the water sector.

These startups demonstrate considerable commercial promise in addition to their impact potential on the 2018 challenge areas: scarcity & resilience, water efficiency, utility operations, monitoring & treatment, and data & analytics.

Launching this week, the 2018 accelerator companies begin a 10-month program that includes access to customer validation opportunities via Imagine H2O’s Beta Partners Program, investor introductions, industry visibility and mentorship. The participants will be honored at Imagine H2O’s WaterGala ’18 on March 14th in San Francisco.

Imagine H2O’s 2018 Accelerator companies:

• Aquacycl — Technology for energy neutral, decentralized wastewater treatment, enabling onsite water reuse with 50–80% reduction in incumbent operational costs. (formerly Aquam LLC)
• change:WATER Labs — A portable, evaporative toilet for homes without power or plumbing — eliminating over 95% of daily sewage volumes onsite, expanding safe, clean, private sanitation in unsewered homes at low cost with low maintenance requirements.
• Cloud to Street — A remote sensing dashboard providing the data to enable access to flood insurance for the 90% of customers in emerging markets currently uninsured against catastrophe.
• CustoMem — Novel adsorbent biomaterials, optimized to capture specific pollutants from wastewater, that clean water to meet regulations in a simple, safe and cost effective process.
• eWaterPay — Affordable, reliable, easily deployed smart water connections for emerging market populations, increasing service reliability by over 100% and revenue collection by 175%.
• Fracta — Machine Learning condition assessment for potable water mains, enabling significant optimization in utility maintenance and debt service spend.
• H2nanO — Chemical-free, powerful destruction of persistent, problematic organics in wastewater, enabling compliance and reuse at up to 80% lower cost.
• Intelliflux — Artificial intelligence-guided adaptive cleaning for membrane and filtration processes, making treatment plants more efficient, reliable, and economical.
• Island Water Technologies — Bioelectrode wastewater sensor, providing drop-in, low-cost, real-time monitoring of microbial activity and other parameters in the Anaerobic Digestion process.
• Osmo Systems — Proprietary, low-cost water quality sensors that enable continuous monitoring in shrimp farms to drive higher, more predictable yields.
• WatchTower Robotics — Design, manufacture, and operation of small-scale robots to identify and pinpoint pipe leaks early and accurately. (formerly PipeGuard Robotics)
• Water Pigeon — A fast, simple, secure alternative to existing automated meter reading without wholesale replacement of existing legacy hardware.

Our thanks to the 2018 Imagine H2O Judges listed below, as well as all of the 100+ pre-judges from our network that assisted in screening the applications.

Steve Kloos / True North Venture Partners
Catherine Ricou / Suez
Chris Morrison / Formerly Ecolab Nalco
Debra Coy / XPV Water Partners
Andy Wheeler / Google Ventures
Paul Gagliardo / Formerly American Water
Adam Tank / Industrial Optic
Nick Dyner / Moleaer
Snehal Desai /Dow Water & Process Solutions
Gary Kremen / Santa Clara Valley Water District
Mitchell Presser / Freshfields
Pierre Côté / COTE Membrane Separation
Sameer Mithal / WaterHealth International
Leslie Shoemaker / Tetra Tech
Peter Wiliams / IBM
Karen Golmer / MIT
Graeme Jarvis / Johnson Controls
Biju George / DC Water
Sead Bajrovic / Grundfos
Helge Daebel / Emerald Technology Ventures
Andy Wales / Formerly SAB Miller
Dirk Brusis / Skion
Reinhard Hübner / Skion
Henrik Laursen / AMI Global
Michael Sesko / Formerly Climate Corp
Nicole Neeman Brady / Renewable Resources Group