Puraffinity, a start-up growing applied sciences which take away PFAS from water, has introduced plans to scale, following the appointment of Vincent Caillaud as its new CEO and securing £6.73 million in new funding from BGF.
Mr Caillaud brings distinctive business expertise, with greater than 20 years working within the water sector. He was beforehand CEO of Veolia Water Applied sciences & Options, a world water expertise enterprise unit throughout the world’s largest water, power and waste administration firm, Veolia.
BGF’s funding completes Puraffinity’s £16.93 million Collection A funding spherical, following present funding from Octopus Ventures, HG Ventures, Kindred Capital, and Verve Ventures, in addition to supplies science sector specialist fund Common Supplies Incubator Co (UMI).
The funding is meant to permit Puraffinity to scale up manufacturing of its patented, PFAS-capturing materials, “Puratech ®”, “to fulfill exceptionally sturdy and rising demand throughout a number of sectors”. It is going to additionally help the corporate’s work growing recent industrial purposes that use Puraffinity’s patented supplies.
Based in 2015 by Henrik Hagemann & Gabi Santosa and spun out of Imperial School London, Puraffinity offers a differentiated answer to the world’s ever-growing PFAS drawback as its expertise persistently and reliably removes PFAS from water, in a way more cost-effective method in contrast with standard remedies.
Puraffinity mentioned its precision applied sciences place it on the forefront of the battle in opposition to PFAS, which have been linked to a number of well being points, together with most cancers. Developed within the Nineteen Forties, PFAS’ molecular make-up makes them immune to water, grease and oil, that means they’ve a number of industrial makes use of. Nonetheless, these similar qualities make them arduous to destroy, therefore the title “ceaselessly chemical substances”, and in response to the Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences, they’ve entered water provides worldwide, with an estimated 97 % of individuals having PFAS of their our bodies.
Worldwide regulators are inspecting bans or limits on the quantity of PFAS consuming water can include in an try to sort out the estimated €16 trillion annual value of environmental remediation and healthcare prices.
Puratech, described as a breakthrough adsorbent media that Puraffinity has developed, may be utilized throughout use circumstances because it encompasses a customisable plug-in answer that matches into any present water therapy system. Puratech will also be tailor-made to seize particular PFAS compounds, making certain that world customers can meet the regulatory requirements of various markets.
The high-performing materials additionally adopts a inexperienced chemistry expertise which, in response to Systemiq 2022, leads to 60 % much less carbon emissions in its manufacturing than present petroleum-based merchandise.
“Attracting such a revered water business determine as Vincent, alongside funding from BGF underlines not solely the progress Puraffinity has already made, however the unbelievable potential of the enterprise, mentioned Henrik Hagemann, founder and chief product & innovation officer at Puraffinity, “The brand new administration construction will enable me to deal with accelerating our present applied sciences and growing new product roadmaps, assured that Puraffinity’s enterprise growth is assured with Vincent as CEO.”
Vincent Caillaud, CEO of Puraffinity, mentioned: “At Puraffinity, we’re delighted to hitch BGF’s rising community of local weather tech start-ups as the corporate continues on its mission of offering PFAS-safe water to the world. With BGF’s experience in serving to start-ups in breakthrough applied sciences obtain transformational development, we stay up for meaningfully increasing our industrial functionality and increasing the worldwide attain of our patented PFAS-removal options.”
“Puraffinity is well-positioned to fulfil its imaginative and prescient of bringing PFAS-safe water to 1 billion individuals by 2030,” mentioned Luke Rajah, investor at BGF. “BGF is thrilled to work with Puraffinity because it enters a brand new section of fast, world development, taking a significant step in direction of enhancing water security. BGF has developed a robust repute for figuring out and offering early-stage help for corporations creating applied sciences which not solely have large potential however provide large societal advantages.”
