Hydroleap, a green wastewater technology company headquartered in Singapore, has raised $4.4m in Series A funding as it gears up for its next growth milestone in APAC with the purpose of driving water sustainability globally. It was led by Japanese venture capital firm Real Tech Holdings, and joined by corporate investors such as Mitsubishi Electric, Seeds Capital, Wavemaker Partners, New Keynes Investments, as well as the state government of Victoria in Australia.
Hydroleap will enter new APAC geographies like Australia, Japan and Indonesia, over the next two years to help companies across data centres, F&B, manufacturing and mining industries, lower their water and carbon footprints by treating wastewater in an environmentally friendly way.
Hydroleap is said to bring more advanced electrooxidation technologies from lab to land as it sets foot in a new vertical for palm oil effluent treatment. Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) poses challenging problems to the wastewater treatment industry due to its adverse effect on the environment, and high degree of oil and organic content. The group will boost its electrochemical treatment capabilities in existing verticals like cooling tower water recycling and F&B wastewater treatment. Additionally, the funding will be used to build a world class R&D, and operation teams in Singapore and Australia.
“The demand for efficient and sustainable industrial wastewater treatment is growing as countries become more water stressed. Our intention is to develop global best practices for the most eco-friendly, efficient and cost-effective water treatment technologies, that help companies meet their ESG goals. Working with multinationals for F&B wastewater treatment and cooling tower water recycling in the past few years have strengthened us to take a bigger step now,” said Hydroleap CEO and founder Mohammad Sherafatmand.
With the support of the Victoria state investment attraction agency, Hydroleap aims to help resource intensive data centres and mining industries in the country, manage and recycle wastewater. In Japan and Indonesia, apart from plans to support data centres whose water consumption is considerably high, they would look to equip manufacturing industries such as paper in the former, and palm oil industries in the latter.
“As Australia’s cleantech sector hub, we look forward to Hydroleap’s manufacturing and R&D presence in Victoria. The technology the company offers is a solution to treating wastewater in a cost effective and environmentally responsible way,” said Danni Jarrett, CEO, Invest Victoria.
Driven by a team of R&D experts, Hydroleap’s electrochemical techniques are said to reduce up to 95% pollutants present in industrial wastewater and lessen the water discharges by 70% in the cooling towers. Hydroleap is also said to enable up to 95% reduction in operating man hours, 100% reduction in chemicals and 30% savings in cost of ownership. Its customers include PUB, Singapore’s Water Agency, Universal Robina Corporation, one of the branded consumer F&B product companies in the Philippines, CapitaLand, one of Asia’s diversified real estate groups headquartered in Singapore and a blue-chip data centre.
