Headquartered between Lisbon and Seattle, Membrion announced a €11.4 million Series B round from Indico, Samsung Ventures, Lam Capital, PureTerra, GiantLeap, Freeflow, and Safar Partners, among other investors.
Membrion develops electro-ceramic desalination technology to treat harsh water effluents from industrial facilities, such as electric batteries production, in a highly cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner.
Greg Newbloom, Founder and CEO of Membrion, said: “We are delighted to welcome Indico to our journey. Their reputation as a firm and focus of the Blue Fund fits perfectly with our mission and development path. We hope to be able to expand to Europe through Portugal in the near future.”
Membrion’s new fundraising will fuel the company’s growth plans, preceding a future expansion to Europe, allowing them to serve a global market that anxiously awaits better sustainable solutions, for water savings and avoidance of ocean contamination around the world.
Stephan Morais, Managing General Partner of Indico Capital, stated: “Membrion is a deeptech company that solves a serious environmental problem. Water is increasingly scarce and valuable, particularly clean water running into our oceans. We are delighted to support their expansion and particularly their European plans.”
Founded in 2016 as a spin-out startup from the University of Washington, Membrion created the world’s first desalination membrane made of ceramic materials to selectively remove dissolved salts, minerals and metals from harsh industrial water streams. While similar processes have been available since the 60’s, traditional polymeric membranes could not operate under harsh conditions and so industrial facilities have used CO2-intensive chemical & thermal treatment. The novel technology developed in-house combines the long life and performance advantages of ceramic membranes with the “roll-to-roll” processing that makes polymer desalination membranes so economical.
The solution will bring new sustainable and cost-effective solutions to both traditional industries such as food & beverage and fast-growing sectors like electric battery production which results in heavy metal wastewater, concentration of difficult brine streams, or high-temperature wastewaters, often trucked off-site for treatment through costly energy-intensive processes. Using Membrion’s technology these industrial companies can now recover up to 98% of water in the harshest conditions, allowing for the recycling of previously wasted water.
