Sources inform ''Globes'' that Kaztrin-based water technology company AquaPure Technologies Ltd. has raised $1 million from existing investors at a company value of $3 million. The company has developed a chemical-free technology for treating water and wastewater using a combination of voltage pulses. The finance will enable AquaPure to continue the construction of pilot installations at leading industrial concerns in Israel.
AquaPure declined to comment on the latest financing round, although CEO Dvir Solnik said that the company was in talks ahead of its entry to the US market with a water company in the US and with leading water authorities in Israel and other countries. Solnik added that the company recently completed a series of successful trials of its technology on fuel-related water contaminants, including a gasoline additive MTBE, which now contaminates 14% of the US's municipal drinking water. According to Solnik, the US Environmental Protection Agency has estimated the market for treatment of water contaminated by MTBE to be worth tens of billions of dollars, and it has declared that it will invest up to $85 billion in solutions to this over the next decade.
The key advantage of AquaPure's technology is that it is economical and the fact that its systems are simple with maintenance requirements that are minor compared those of existing systems.
AquaPure was founded in 2002 under the auspices of the Meytag Technology Incubator in Katzrin, and it became an independent company in 2004. The company has raised a total of $2.1 million in investment to date, including the current financing round, of which $400,000 was from the Chief Scientist and $800,000 from Ludan Engineering Co. Ltd. (TASE: LUDN) and other investors.
AquaPure employs ten people. Its chairman is David Waxman, formerly CEO at Altantium Ltd. and IDE Technologies and its scientific advisers are Prof. Yakov Krasik and Prof. Chaim Sheindorf.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on May 20, 2007
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