It’s a day of money in Canadian tech today. First social network API geeks LoginRadius claimed a $1.3 million seed round. Now clean tech startup Axine Water Technologies is announcing that it has raised a $5.6 million series A round of funding.
Investors taking part in the round include a new California-based investor, The Roda Group, as well as existing investors Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital and BDC Venture Capital.
The startup has developed a low-cost, chemical-free solution for treating high concentrations of problematic, toxic organics, ammonia, and other pollutants in industrial wastewater.
“This important infusion of capital ensures our continued rapid progress towards the commercialization of our ‘best-in-breed’ wastewater treatment technology,” said CEO Jonathan Rhone. He said that since the company’s first round of funding in late 2012, it successfully completed performance testing on customer wastewaters, using a “10 times scale-up of our proprietary electrolytic oxidation cell-validating high efficacy treatment.” It did this at low cost and low energy consumption, without using chemicals. “We’re now focused on completing final cell scale-up and system integration to prepare for delivery of field pilot units to customer sites early next year.”
Axine’s new funding marks the largest water & wastewater Series A financing in North America in the past year and one of the largest internationally in the last two years.
The company is targeting industries like Oil and Gas, where companies frequently must deal with wastewater treatment and disposal. The Roda Group’s Marty Reed descibed waste treatment and water reuse as “massive global problems and top investment priorities for Roda.”
Axine said that over the past 12 months it worked closely with industry leaders in oil & gas, refining, waste management, and chemical processing to verify and benchmark the capability of its technology for a cost of up to five times lower than incumbent solutions. It helps customers reduce chronic production bottlenecks, lower operating costs, avoid regulatory penalties, and enable wastewater to be treated and reused on-site to offset the rising cost of fresh water.
“Water is an increasingly strategic issue for the oil & gas industry due to rising costs, requirements for water reuse, and more stringent discharge standards,” said Chrysalix EVC partner Jean-Michel Gires. “Axine offers a unique and disruptive solution that addresses significant challenges throughout the oil and gas value chain – from oil sands SAGD to refinery effluent – offering exactly the type of breakthrough innovation I believe this industry needs to realize the true energy opportunity.”
Over the past 12 months, Axine has worked closely with industry leaders in oil & gas, refining, waste management, and chemical processing to verify and benchmark the capability of its technology in treating the most difficult wastewaters at a cost of up to five times lower than incumbent solutions. This enables customers to reduce chronic production bottlenecks, lower operating costs, avoid regulatory penalties, and enable wastewater to be treated and reused on-site to offset the rising cost of fresh water.
Photo from Biv.com