The Water Council and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch announced today the fourth round of winners of the BREW (Business. Research. Entrepreneurship. In Wisconsin.) Accelerator program during a ceremony at the 9th annual Water Summit in Milwaukee.
The BREW Accelerator, launched in 2013, funds water technology startups.
Six startups were chosen to participate in the fourth year of the accelerator program, they are:
- CORNCOB, Inc. (Wisconsin): 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 (Illinois): Rick Latella and Marc Carson. DMR has engineered the NOVEX-AMG family of additive systems that have demonstrated solutions for water filtration systems, using “environmentally responsible” materials.
- Energy Tech Innovations (Wisconsin): Bryan Johnson. Energy Tech is developing a low-cost, 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 (British Columbia, Canada): Jamie Gordy and Rupert Whiting. Smart Waters harvests rainwater and holds it indefinitely in order to provide strategic reserves for municipal water needs.
- WISRAN (California): 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.
Each year, 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 more.
The BREW has worked with 20 water technology startups to date, and recently committed to launching 75 more over the next five years.
