The Water Council was recently featured on Yahoo! Finance, highlighting The Council's partnership with A. O. Smith Corporation in selecting a winner for the 2016 BREW Accelerator Program.
SofTap Water Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio was chosen as this year's winner. "SofTap Water was the overall leader, and we felt it was the best investment for both A. O. Smith and The Water Council," noted Dr. Robert Heideman, chief technology officer at A. O. Smith Corporation.
As the winner, SofTap Water will receive an investment of $50,000 and tuition to participate in the Water Council's 12-month accelerator program in Milwaukee.
Winning entrepreneurs will also receive:
- A suite in the Global Water Center for up to 12 months;
- Business model and operations training through The Water Council and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Institute for Water Business;
- Access to faculty and students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School for Freshwater Sciences and Marquette University;
- Access to the Global Water Center's Flow Lab and A. O. Smith product engineering labs;
- Mentorship from A. O. Smith corporate development and senior engineering staff, as well as direct access to BREW Preferred Partners;
- Attendance to conferences and pitch sessions with The Water Council; and
- A one-year membership to The Water Council providing access to an extensive water technology network.
Dean Amhaus, president and CEO at The Water Council, believes "Our vision to be the globally connected epicenter of freshwater research, innovation, education, and business development is central to developing entrepreneurs such as the SofTap Water team. We anticipate their new unique technology will be a catalyst in helping to reduce the amount of water that's wasted by many products that soften and treat water in the market today."
About SofTap Water
SofTap Water's unique water-softening technology utilizes a proprietary, passive filtration system to remove dissolved calcium and magnesium bicarbonates that form scale in drinking and industrial water systems. In addition to softening, this technology also provides water filtration benefits including the removal of endotoxins, viruses, bacteria, cysts, polysaccharides, colloids, iron, manganese, sub-micron particles, and trace pharmaceuticals. The company's motto is simple: to reuse, recycle and regenerate.
About BREW Accelerator
BREW Accelerator, a program of The Water Council, is a world-class seed accelerator that unleashes water innovation by funding water technology startups with commercialization potential. The first-of-its-kind accelerator pairs a unique water-focused startup community with credible resources of the World Water Hub to help entrepreneurs from around the world accelerate results. Now in its fourth year, BREW has sponsored a total of 20 freshwater technology companies. An expansion of the BREW Accelerator program, BREW Corporate, partners with global corporations looking for new technologies to solve a specific challenge.