A startup company co-founded by a master’s student at Waterloo Engineering has been selected to join a high-profile San Francisco accelerator that focuses on the water sector.
EMAGIN Clean Technologies Inc., which is based at the University of Waterloo’s Velocity Garage in downtown Kitchener, earned one of 12 spots at Imagine H2O in a competition featuring more than 180 applicants from 20 countries.
“This is honestly huge for us,” said Thouheed Abdul Gaffoor, who started the company last year with co-founder Mohamad Vedut.
In addition to serving as chief executive officer of the startup, Gaffoor is pursuing a master’s degree in civil engineering after also earning his undergraduate degree at Waterloo. Several other members of the eight-member team have ties to the University as well.
EMAGIN uses artificial intelligence to help municipalities better manage their water systems, providing software to alert operators to problems and predict how systems will handle fluctuating daily demands.
The underlying aim is to enable water utilities to make smarter, proactive operational decisions in real-time instead of merely reacting to problems.
Although the company and its founders will remain in Kitchener, the 10-month accelerator program involves trips to conferences and other events in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and Las Vegas
Gaffoor hopes to take advantage of Imagine H2O’s mentorship programs, profile, and connections in the water industry and Silicon Valley, including potential investors and customers. Last year’s participants raised more than $27 million in financing.
'Opportunity for us to diversify'
“It’s an opportunity for us to diversify the scope of our products as well as work outside of Ontario and tackle some of the bigger challenges that are out there globally,” he said, citing the search for better ways of turning the waste in wastewater into energy as one area the company will explore.
EMAGIN and the 11 other finalists will be honoured at a gala in San Francisco in March, when an overall winner of the competition will be announced. The other startups are from as far afield as the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel and Ethiopia.
“This is an impressive group of companies doing important work in their chosen area,” Paul Gagliardo, a member of the judging panel, said in a news release. “Scaling their business through Imagine H2O’s program will be a unique opportunity to bring their innovations to market.”