Microvi Partners with Elemental Excelerator to Bring Clean Water to Disadvantaged Communities in California
Microvi Biotech Inc. has been selected for Elemental Excelerator’s 7th cohort. Elemental Excelerator is a growth accelerator focused on improving systems that impact people’s lives. Microvi has received funding as part of Elemental’s Equity and Access Track to implement projects focused on nitrate removal in contaminated drinking water for low- to moderate-income communities in California.
“We believe that clean water is a human right, yet access to technologies to provide clean water in a sustainable, cost-effective way is often inequitable.” said Dr. Fatemeh Shirazi, CEO and CTO of Microvi. “Microvi’s technologies completely change the economics for issues such as nitrate pollution and nutrient removal from wastewater. By enabling disruptive economics, Microvi’s technologies also introduce new possibilities for innovative business models for disadvantaged communities.”
“Microvi’s water technologies are drop-in, low cost, produce no secondary waste, and require significantly less energy than alternative solutions for nitrate treatment,” said Dana Cotter, Director of Portfolio at Elemental Excelerator. “We selected Microvi out of 500 applicants given the magnitude of the impact Microvi’s technology has on ensuring all communities have access to safe water.”
Microvi has been actively bringing sustainable solutions to the water industry for a decade. The nitrate removal technology was developed under their MicroNiche Engineering (MNE) platform. MNE combines materials science and microbiology in a way the world has never seen before, creating natural habitats which optimize the performance of organisms in industrial bioprocesses. With the support of Elemental Excelerator, Microvi will be installing nitrate treatment systems for some of the communities in California that need it most.
Nitrate is one of the most widespread contaminants in groundwater globally and can have significant human health impacts. Its impact is primarily felt in rural communities where groundwater is contaminated with agricultural runoff. According to the California State Water Resources Control Board, 21 million Californians drink contaminated groundwater.
About Microvi
Microvi is a green technology company based in the San Francisco Bay Area that delivers next-generation biotechnologies for the water, wastewater and renewable chemical industries. Microvi offers commercial technologies around the world to reduce waste, increase productivity and provide disruptive economics across the value chain. Learn more at microvi.com.
About Elemental Excelerator
Elemental Excelerator helps startups change the world, one community at a time. Each year, it finds 15-20 companies that best fit their mission and invest up to $1 million in each to improve systems that impact people’s lives: water, agriculture, transportation, energy, and beyond. To date, the program has awarded over $30 million to 82 companies. For more information, please visit elementalexcelerator.com.
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Contacts:
Microvi Marketing
info@microvi.com
1 (510) 344-0668
Lauren Tonokawa
Managing Director, Communications, Elemental Excelerator
lauren@elementalexcelerator.com