SAN FRANCISCO — Epic Cleantec, the San Francisco-based onsite water reuse firm, has successfully closed a $9.4 million financing round. The company has pioneered an approach to treat and reuse water in buildings and will use the funding to expand geographically and deepen its portfolio of technology offerings.
Epic’s onsite water reuse approach captures and treats a building’s wastewater, purifying it to exceptionally high standards for reuse in non-potable applications, such as toilet flushing, irrigation, cooling towers, and laundry. The Epic approach can help a building reuse up to 95% of its water, saving owners hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on their water and sewer bills. The company’s systems can also incorporate additional resource recovery elements, converting wastewater into carbon-rich soil products and reusing wastewater heat for onsite renewable energy. Epic’s systems lower costs for building owners, ease strain on municipal utilities, and strengthen sustainability and resiliency efforts.
“When it comes to how we design our water and wastewater infrastructure, we’ve essentially done things the same way for 200 years,” said Epic co-founder and CEO, Aaron Tartakovsky. “Yet with the combined challenges of urban population growth, aging infrastructure, and climate change, the status quo simply won’t keep up. This additional funding will help us accelerate the mainstream adoption of water reuse and increase our ability to deploy our critical systems throughout the nation, and eventually around the world.”
The round was led by the family office of Dr. Kathy Fields and Dr. Garry Rayant, with participation from J-Ventures, J-Impact, and investors from a previous round comprised of VCs, real estate leaders, and prominent entrepreneurs, including Elizabeth Cutler, SoulCycle’s founder and former CEO, and Peter Yolles, water technology investor and advisor.
“In the 21st century, we should not have to rely on whether or not it rains to know if we’ll have enough water for our communities,” said Oded Hermoni, General Partner at J-Ventures. “With smart water infrastructure, we can predictably reuse and supply water where and when people need it. Epic is at the forefront of water innovation and will lead the way in building the sustainable, water-secure cities of the future.”
In the last 18 months, Epic has signed several major contracts, expanded its partnerships with leading players in real estate, and was a finalist in Imagine H2O’s Urban Water Challenge (a global competition designed to deploy leading water technology solutions into coastal cities).