Water management has a data problem.
Not a lack of data but a lack of the right data, in the right place, at the right time, connected to decisions that actually matter. Too much monitoring happens at the wrong scale, too late, or with tools that weren’t built for the environments where water stress is most acute.
The seven ventures in the Smart Water Systems, Monitoring & Environmental Intelligence cluster of the AquaSphere 2026 Cohort are each tackling a different layer of this problem, from the point of use inside a building to the open ocean, from industrial wastewater to freshwater carbon accounting.
🇨🇭 Droople : IoT water asset intelligence
Most water intelligence stops at the building level. Droople goes further, to the point of use, where water is actually consumed. Droople has built a full-stack platform that connects individual water assets (fixtures, dispensers, treatment systems) via NB-IoT and LoRa, then runs AI models in the cloud to detect leaks, predict maintenance needs, and verify savings. With 5,000+ connected assets across 100+ B2B customers in 20+ countries and a sub-one-year ROI in water-intensive environments, Droople is one of the commercially mature ventures in the cohort.
🇲🇦 SITELI CW : Modular wastewater reuse for irrigation
In water-stressed regions, industrial wastewater isn’t a problem to dispose of, it’s a resource being wasted. SITELI CW, based in Morocco, designs compact, mobile treatment units that allow industries to treat and reuse water on-site, closing the loop without depending on centralised infrastructure. The technology targets a real cost pressure: wastewater treatment can consume up to 50% of a facility’s electricity, and regulatory fines for non-compliance can exceed $60,000 per day. SITELI CW turns that liability into an operational asset.
🇸🇪 Atium AB : Selective mercury removal
Mercury contamination in industrial wastewater is persistent, toxic, and increasingly regulated, yet existing treatment methods are consumables-based, waste-intensive, and unreliable under harsh industrial conditions. Atium has developed a patented reusable electrochemical filter that captures dissolved mercury ions and converts them into a stable alloy on corrosion-resistant electrodes. The electrodes are regenerated and reused, sharply reducing hazardous waste and lifecycle cost. Already generating revenue with dental wastewater clients and advancing into mining and chemical sector pilots, Atium is building a modular platform that scales across industries wherever mercury regulations are tightening.
🇳🇴 Ocean Visuals : LiDAR for oil and chemical detection
Early detection of oil spills and chemical contamination in water is one of the most time-critical challenges in environmental protection, and one where conventional sensor systems consistently fall short. Ocean Visuals has developed proprietary LiDAR-based sensor systems for real-time detection of oil, certain chemicals, and organics in water. The company is an EU Horizon EIC Accelerator winner in the Deeptech segment, currently raising a €7M Series A round with a €2.5M commitment already secured from the European Investment Bank, one of the advanced fundraising positions in the cohort.
🇪🇸 GraphenicaLab : Graphene biosensors for water quality
Heavy metal contamination, lead, mercury, cadmium, in marine environments is difficult to detect at the resolution needed for early intervention. Traditional methods are slow, expensive, and provide limited spatial data. GraphenicaLab, a spin-off from ICN2 has developed SeaWizard: a multiplex, AI-enabled lab-on-a-chip platform using graphene-based sensors to detect contaminants directly in seawater. By combining printed electronics, nanomaterials, and artificial intelligence, the system enables continuous, high-resolution pollution mapping, turning environmental data into actionable intelligence for marine ecosystem management.
🇫🇮 Sansox Oy : Oxygen-based water treatment
Chemical dependency in water treatment is costly, environmentally damaging, and increasingly at odds with sustainability targets. Sansox, founded in 2013 has built its approach around a different principle: oxygen instead of chemicals. Its patented OxTube technology dissolves oxygen or air into water at record efficiency through a four-stage hermetic process – separation, activation, clarification, and re-dissolution – within seconds, without energy-intensive infrastructure. Deployed across potable water treatment, aquaculture, industrial wastewater, and nature rejuvenation projects in Finland, the Philippines, India, and beyond, Sansox is building a global case for chemistry-free water treatment at scale.
🇬🇧 Open Hydro : Carbon MRV for freshwater systems
Freshwater reservoirs currently emit approximately 1 Gt CO₂e annually, yet water utilities have no reliable way to prove which of their interventions actually drive carbon sequestration. Open Hydro has built the first end-to-end digital MRV engine for freshwater systems. Using Sentinel satellite data and machine learning trained on 21,000+ reservoirs, the platform isolates human-led improvements from natural climate variability, enabling utilities to convert mandatory compliance into bankable “Teal Carbon” assets.
These seven ventures don’t all work in the same market and they don’t all solve the same problem. What they share is a conviction that better data, better materials, and better systems can fundamentally change how we understand and manage water, whether in a building fixture, an industrial discharge stream, or the open ocean.
They are part of the AquaSphere 2026 Cohort, 20 deep-tech ventures from 14 countries across 4 continents, supported by the AquaSphere Accelerator Programme, funded by the European Union, EIT RawMaterials, and the EIT Higher Education Initiative.
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