Two winners receive $25K at 2018 Pipeline H20 Demo Day

Hamilton Mills announced the winners of their 2018 Pipeline H20 Program at a final Demo Day held May 24. A local small business accelerator focusing on sustainable and environmentally conscious start-ups, Hamilton Mills leads the annual water technology commercialization program called Pipeline H20.

The winners of the second Pipeline H20 Program, Drop Water of Menlo Park, California and GeoInteractive of Sydney, Australia each received $25,000. Funding and support for the program came through a grant from the Hamilton Community Foundation, regional cities, utilities, universities, and startup organizations throughout the Greater Cincinnati region.

Hamilton Mills chooses 5-10 start-ups and works with them from February to May on business fundamentals, marketing and financial skills, and networking.

The winners are announced at a concluding Demo Day, when the participants get a chance to demonstrate their technology and potential impacts to experts including investors, government innovators, university representatives, and members of the Start Up Cincy community.

“What’s unique about our approach is its peer ranking methodology,” says Antony Seppi, operations director of Hamilton Mills. Throughout the program, the start-ups get to know each other and examine elements such as teamwork, customer validation, financials, scale and impact, product and return of capital.

Seppi says of their mission: “We want them to have a customer, a pile of customers, or someone interested in using their program” by the end.

The participants met with large corporations and even members of the City of Cincinnati and the City of Hamilton. For a start-up, a major challenge can be getting recognized. “We want to make those introductions,” says Seppi, “Once we do that, they can run with it.”

The 6 companies included:

A software company from London, Advizzo, who develops a Software-as-a-Service solution to customer interface through water and energy companies.

Folia Water, an innovative water filter manufacturer from Oakland California specializing in highly affordable water filters.

Cincinnati native company, Water Warriora, developing a no-expansion needed solution for water treatment plants.

Micronic Techologies, a woman owned small business from Wise, Virginia developing, patenting, and commercializing a state-of-the-art water filtration system.

And the two winners:

Drop Water of Menlo Park, California, developers and distributors for biodegradable water bottles and kiosks, who, as a result of the program, is in contact with international airports for potential use of their kiosks.

Geo Interactive, from Sydney, Australia engineering automation for critical sewer inspections.

Seppi stresses Hamilton Mills’ mission to work with innovative small businesses actually developing environmentally forward technologies. “We wanted to go after makers and those working around environmental issues.”