Oxyle raises CHF 3.2M in non-dilutive funding to further develop its catalytic oxidation technology for efficient and sustainable wastewater treatment
29.06.2021
Oxyle AG, an advanced wastewater treatment provider has raised over CHF 3 million in non-dilutive funding since its founding last year. The investment comes from the European Commission’s H2020 EIC accelerator program, the Eurostars program, and other prestigious national grants. Oxyle has won several competitive awards including the 2020 Grand Prize of the Venture competition and the 2021 SEIF award for Social Innovation sponsored by UBS. We interviewed Oxyle's Co-founder and CEO Dr. Fajer Mushtaq to know more about the origin of the project and the use of these funds.
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Oxyle has developed several novel nanoporous catalysts, as shown in the right picture, that destroy over 95% of a wide variety of toxic micropollutants from wastewater effluents, including the highly persistent compounds that are resistant to existing treatments. In contrast to existing technologies, Oxyle’s green approach is highly efficient, cost-competitive, uses clean energy sources, imposes a low carbon footprint, and meets stringent discharge regulations. 
The aim is to provide modular, decentralized reactors of varying sizes to meet the treatment needs of its customer segments including chemical industries, pharmaceutical, biotech, and food and beverage companies, hospitals, and research laboratories. The proceeds from these funds will accelerate market entry by upscaling catalyst production, on-site piloting, product development, and certification of their wastewater treatment technology.
Dr. Fajer Mushtaq, how will the CHF 3.2 million investment help achieve your vision?
You won Venture Kick Stage 1 in 2019. How did it help you lay the foundation for your growth and today's achievement?
What is your advice for the potential cleantech entrepreneurs launching companies in Switzerland today?
Oxyle has also been awarded financial support from SNSF’s BRIDGE PoC grant, ERC PoC grant, Gebert Rüf Stiftung’s Innobooster grant, the Venture Kick program, and Innosuisse.
The aim is to provide modular, decentralized reactors of varying sizes to meet the treatment needs of its customer segments including chemical industries, pharmaceutical, biotech, and food and beverage companies, hospitals, and research laboratories. The proceeds from these funds will accelerate market entry by upscaling catalyst production, on-site piloting, product development, and certification of their wastewater treatment technology.Dr. Fajer Mushtaq, how will the CHF 3.2 million investment help achieve your vision?Oxyle’s vision is to protect the health of our precious bodies of water by eliminating the discharge of highly persistent and toxic chemicals at their source using our decentralized treatment reactors. With this new influx of funding, we will be scaling our operations by expanding our team, conducting more on-site customer pilots, and using the feedback to support the product development of our MVP. We will also upscale the production of our catalyst and use these funds towards certifying our technology with the help of our manufacturing partner. All these important aspects will be crucial towards ensuring an accelerated market entry of Oxyle’s small-scale reactors.
You won Venture Kick Stage 1 in 2019. How did it help you lay the foundation for your growth and today's achievement?
Participating in Venture Kick helped us to develop our business plan and pricing strategy. This exposure provided us with the opportunity to engage in fruitful discussions with many financial experts who challenged our key assumptions and helped us to create a robust business model by evaluating various aspects of this highly fragmented wastewater treatment industry.
When, and what, was your inspiration to found Oxyle?
The idea to work on this topic of global relevance was envisioned during the start of my Ph.D. in 2014 at the Multi-scale Robotics lab at ETH Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Salvador Pané i Vidal and Prof. Bradley J. Nelson. While working in our chemistry labs, I experienced first-hand the drawbacks associated with the unsustainable, dangerous, and inefficient method used currently for wastewater disposal. Since then, I have dedicated 5 years of my doctoral research to developing novel catalysts that can remove a wide range of highly problematic micropollutants from wastewater in an efficient, non-selective, easy to use, cost-effective, and most importantly, in a sustainable manner. In 2020, after completing several successful customer POCs and pilots with our novel catalyst, we experienced a considerable amount of interest in our technology from the industry.
So, in May 2020, Oxyle was officially founded with the mission to protect our water resources, lower blue water consumption through increased water reuse, and reduce CO2 emissions by eliminating effluent incineration.
What is your advice for the potential cleantech entrepreneurs launching companies in Switzerland today?
My advice is to always trust your instincts and follow your goals with passion and determination. It is an undeniable fact, that cleantech innovations are the need of the hour to save our environment and natural resources for future generations. I would encourage new cleantech entrepreneurs to spend time on the story-telling aspect of their innovation and to present their vision in an easy-to-understand but compelling manner, both to technical experts and the general audience. Additionally, visibility is key to early success, so I would highly recommend new entrepreneurs be active and take advantage of the various opportunities provided by the robust Swiss startup ecosystem. This includes courses, startup competitions, pitching events, and workshops organized by Venture Lab, Innosuisse, etc.