Elateq and Founder Factory’s Blue Action Accelerator
Words Founders Factory February 6th 2025 / 3 min read We’re excited to announce our latest Blue Action Accelerator investment—Elateq. The problem Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource globally, meaning that the treatment of waste water is now one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges. Industries from agriculture to chemical manufacturing to mining all have considerable impacts on our supply, polluting waters with PFAS (AKA ‘forever chemicals), metals, and other harmful pollutants. Treating wastewater comes with a number of challenges. For one, it’s costly. Existing technologies like Reverse Osmosis (RO), UV, and Ion Exchange are resource-intensive, expensive, and require several stages of integration. Moreover, many of these solutions focus on individual chemicals or certain metals, forcing utility companies to adopt and integrate multiple solutions, adding complexity and cost. With increasing regulatory pressures, and a growing spotlight on water as a resource, this issue is only expected to grow. And by 2030, the annual cost of sustainable water treatment is expected to exceed $1 trillion. Interested in receiving more insights like this ? Subscribe to our newsletter and join 20K founders, investors & innovators.Subscribe here The solution Elateq is introducing a vital innovation to the waste water treatment market, integrating multiple treatment processes into one electrochemical unit. Rather than requiring multiple stages (like most existing systems), Elateq combines these multiple functions into a single unit. This not only means that it is considerably less complex, it also requires less energy (more than 80% in energy savings) and leads to considerable cost savings. Moreover, the technology is flexible and scalable, allowing for applications in diverse markets such as municipal wastewater, industrial effluent treatment, desalination, and lithium extraction from brines. The team Ljiljana Rajic (Chief Scientific Officer & co-founder) Ljiljana is the scientific lead of the business, and the brains behind the patented technology at the core of Elateq. Prior to this, she was a senior research scientist and co-lead of a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded green remediation project at Northeastern University. Her PhD is in chemistry from the University of Novi Sad (Serbia). Roderick Anderson (CEO & co-founder) Roderick brings a strong background in leadership. He spent the seven years prior to Elateq as the President of Pioneer Valley Coral and Natural Science Institute, an education and research institute which offers STEM programs for historically marginalised students as well as wet lab-bench rentals for early stage proof of concept research for entrepreneurs. Why we’re excited to invest Olivia Brooks, Head of Investments at Blue Action Accelerator, says: “The water treatment industry is highly fragmented – with various solutions that capture waste minerals, remove harmful PFAs, or simply focus on purification. What Elateq have built is a compelling all-in-one adaptable solution that addresses multiple challenges across industries. Founders Lily and Rod are a formidable team real scientific and water industry expertise alongside commercial acumen, demonstrating their ambition to capture not just one multi-billion dollar market, but several.” What they’re looking to get out of the program
C&EN On our radar 2024
The landfill on the southeastern edge of Amherst, Massachusetts, closed in the 1980s, but city officials say it’s still causing iron and manganese to leach into the groundwater. For years, residents have reported orange, contaminated water, so the town is trying out a new water treatment system developed by the start-up Elateq. Founded in 2020, Elateq uses an electrochemical cell to remove metals, pathogens, organic pollutants, and other contaminants. The system has a specialized carbon material that acts as bipolar electrodes. Cofounder and Chief Science Officer Ljiljana Rajic says fine-tuning the voltages across the electrodes enables the system to carry out reduction and oxidation reactions at the same time. On one side of the carbon, the electricity generates hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize organic pollutants. On the opposite side, the electricity reduces metals in the water and causes them to get plated onto the cathode. A capacitive deionization process elsewhere in the carbon simultaneously removes salts. “Those are the three main processes,” Rajic says. “They’re all happening on the same block of carbon, but on different parts of the carbon.” Rajic says the system is simpler than existing multistep water treatment methods. And using electricity eliminates the need for water treatment chemicals or membranes, reducing the system’s cost and carbon footprint. In October, the company started up a solar- powered water treatment system in Amherst that processes 150,000 L of water per day. Elateq is also running a pilot system to treat wastewater from a PepsiCo facility in Kolkata, India. In September, Elateq received a US National Science Foundation grant to scale up a second generation of the technology, which will also remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The company hopes to have it ready by 2029, when public water systems in the US are required to start removing the chemicals.
Amherst Installs Innovative Groundwater Treatment System in Partnership with Elateq Inc.
The Town of Amherst, in partnership with Elateq Inc., installed a new solar-powered groundwater treatment system that will cut energy use by an estimated 72% and address high iron concentration in the water drainage system. This project, located in the Pine Grove and Hollow neighborhood, will pilot Elateq’s innovative technology while leading to an estimated 80% reduction in operational costs including a 90% decrease in energy expenses for the Town of Amherst. This project is supported by a $67,250 InnovateMass Grant awarded to Elateq Inc. by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC). https://www.amherstma.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=3705&ARC=7124
Elateq, Inc. Awarded Competitive Grant from the National Science Foundation
Small Business Innovation Research Program Provides Seed Funding for PFAS-related R&D Elateq, Inc. has been awarded a $1mn National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to conduct research and development (R&D) work on a novel technology for advanced electrochemical degradation of “forever chemicals” or PFAS in water. The R&D will result in affordable, scalable, sustainable technology for effectively destroying PFAS, which can be easily operated and maintained on-site. The technology integrates electrochemically induced, advanced oxidation and reduction processes alongside an improved design of the conventional electrochemical flow cell to achieve high-performance mineralization of PFAS. Elateq’s sustainable technology for removing PFAS from water aims to protect public health and the environment from the adverse impacts of PFAS, not only from direct exposure to these chemicals but also indirect adverse impacts originating from current solutions—high energy consumption, harsh chemicals used for maintenance, and the need for, e.g., incineration as a PFAS-loaded waste post-processing. Roderick Anderson, Elateq’s CEO: “The NSF SBIR award is a critical support of Elateq’s efforts to develop such technology that we can comfortably stop naming PFAS as forever chemicals.” About the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Programs Once a small business is awarded a Phase I SBIR/STTR grant (up to $275,000), it becomes eligible to apply for a Phase II (up to $1,000,000). Small businesses with Phase II funding are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investments or sales. To learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, visit: https://seedfund.nsf.gov/ America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $8.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
Lily Rajic is Awarded into the Newest Class of Activate Fellows
We are thrilled to announce our newest class of Activate Fellows, Cohort 2024! With 62 fellows and 50 companies, Cohort 2024 is our largest yet. Selected from over 1,000 applicants, this new class of fellows is pioneering some of today’s most promising innovations across a range of critical sectors, including energy, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and national security. During the two-year Activate Fellowship, our new fellows will turn their breakthroughs into businesses and transform into high-impact science entrepreneurs. “People, not ideas alone, move the world forward. It is through the drive and determination of brilliant scientists and engineers that we are witnessing true progress,” says Activate CEO Cyrus Wadia. “Our current Activate Fellows and alumni are already pioneering innovative solutions that make a measurable difference. We’re thrilled to support the next 62 visionaries who will lead the charge in addressing our most urgent issues through groundbreaking science and technology.”
Advancing water treatment: UMass startup Elateq Inc. wins state grant to deploy new technology
AMHERST — In the four years since its founding on the UMass campus, startup Elateq Inc., a water treatment and hardware company, has landed contracts big (think PepsiCo) and small (think town of Amherst). Now the company, which uses advanced electrochemical technology to treat wastewater and produce treatment products, has received a $92,000 grant from the Massachusetts Manufacturing Accelerate Program to assist with the purchase of new equipment as it seeks to continue its early growth for its all-in-one water treatment system. “We are looking for a bright future,” said CEO Roderick Anderson. Anderson co-founded Elateq in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, with Ljiljana Rajic, a former research scientist at Northeastern University whom he met about seven years ago. Anderson, who taught at Trinity College, abandoned his liberal arts studies and started his own business, as a way to have a greater influence on the world after 11 years of “preaching from the periphery.” “I was passionate about my research, but I did not want to do it anymore,” said Anderson. “I want a more sustained job and to produce real-world, tangible things.” He said he and Rajic share a common goal to pursue a different life and get out of a laboratory. “Give it a try, so operating a company is our mutual goal to work on our projects outside of the universities,” said Anderson. Elateq’s first contract was with the town of Amherst, which hired the company to apply its technique as a pretreatment to extract heavy metals from groundwater that was corrupting the town’s pumping station. They used state funding available from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s Catalyst Program to demonstrate a new approach: solar and storage-powered systems, using solar energy to purify water in a more sustainable and eco-friendly way. The process traditionally has involved using reverse osmosis systems to power water filtration systems, which involves many steps and a significant amount of energy. Solar-powered systems are thought to be superior in terms of sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental impact because they do not require electricity. “Our solar system is very unique,” Anderson said. Amherst served as the starting point, but Elateq is currently a rising star with more global impacts. They started working with PepsiCo last year, the second-largest food and beverage corporation in the world, to cleanse wastewater by using less energy via electrochemical means, eliminating pathogens as well as organic and inorganic pollutants. Elateq is the only water treatment company selected to work with Pepsi’s European supply chain, and Anderson says its system is helping the giant company work toward its 2030 objective of 100% water recovery at all of its manufacturing production facilities worldwide. With the new state grant, the Amherst startup aims to buy equipment and pursue technological advancements that they believe would increase equipment efficiency. “We need advanced equipment to help us generate the macro electrodes, and get them ready for assembly,” said Anderson. One to three of the employees at the firm, located at 240 Thatcher Road, will go through additional training funded by the state grant. The company has three full-time workers and five to 10 contract employees. MMAP, launched by the Center for Advanced Manufacturing in 2021, invests in initiatives that help employers meet production techniques that rely on smart technologies, such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, and clouded computing. Elateq is one of 17 businesses funded in the current round for a total of $3.14 million. “The Center for Advanced Manufacturing is confident that these targeted investments can help manufacturers increase the adoption of digital technologies across our supply base, leading to increased productivity and competitiveness. Without this, the industrial capacity across our state and country will be limited. We are thrilled to support innovative companies like Elateq which are well poised for growth and success,” said CAM Director Christine Nolan. Elateq will use the MMAP grant to purchase more advanced machinery that help create the needed electrodes for water treatment. Most of the imported equipment currently in use needs to be updated, making it difficult for American businesses to use these older machines due to the inefficiency, Anderson said. In addition, the cost of new equipment makes it nearly impossible for businesses to increase their production capacities without financial assistance. Anderson added that the grant will help them scale up the business, increase their global influence, and elevate their standing in the industry in the current situation. “We’ve already set a whole lineup of market verticals, but we will keep growing,” he said. “And let’s make the magic happen.”Xinyi Yang writes for the Gazette from the Boston University Statehouse Program.