The Water Council announced the fifth round of companies to be backed by its Brew Accelerator on Thursday and Milwaukee-based A.O. Smith Corp. announced the winner of its corporate accelerator.
A.O. Smith chose Toronto-based Nanolytix as the 2017 winner of its Brew Corporate challenge. Nanolytix uses artificial intelligence and sensor technologies to detect the presence of pathogens and other contaminants in real time.
“The potential for a low cost, water quality sensing technology made Nanolytix a great fit within our global water strategy,” said Robert Heideman, A.O. Smith chief technology officer.
The startup will receive a $50,000 investment from A.O. Smith along with space in the Global Water Center, mentorship from A.O. Smith corporate development and engineering staff, membership in The Water Council and attendance to conferences and pitch sessions with The Water Council.
Brew Corporate is a spin-off of The Water Council’s main startup accelerator, the Brew. That program graduated its fourth round of companies on Thursday and named its fifth round. The five companies named to the newest round included three based in Wisconsin and one each from Canada and Australia. The winners included:
- Ontario, Canada-based Ecoli-Sense, which is working on biosensor technologies for monitoring water quality, including a magnetic bio-ink to detect E. coli
- Richfield-based Pulsed Burst Systems LLC, which uses low pressure large bubbles for better mixing in the water and waterwater industries. The company already has a demonstration project at the South Shore Water Reclamation facility in Milwaukee.
- Brisbane, Australia-based Hydrate Gel Filtration, which uses a gelatinous layer of aluminum hydroxide hydrate to filter water.
- Lancaster, Wisconsin-based Water Resources Monitoring Group, which seeks to address deficiencies in agricultural water run-off.
- Milwaukee-based Plasma Environmental, which has developed a new way to reliably generate enough reactive ions to provide clean water.
Winners receive similar benefits to the corporate winner, including a $50,000 equity investment from The Water Council, work space in the Global Water Center and business training.
“Milwaukee, a city that brewed beer for decades, is internationally recognized for brewing water technology innovations to help solve our world’s water challenges,” said Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of The Water Council. “From a gel filtering technology to giant bubbles, we are eager to get to work with this new batch of startups.”
