We are pleased to welcome Hydro Venture Partners (http://hydrovp.com) on board the Series B financing round of Cerahelix (http://www.cerahelix.com), further validating the unique value proposition of the technology and the great work the team at Cerahelix is doing. Proceeds from this round will be used to increase manufacturing capacity to support growing sales, develop larger format filters with an increased number of channels, and scale marketing and sales capabilities.
Cerahelix manufactures the PicoHelix, a ceramic membrane filter that achieves ten times higher purity than today’s best commercially available ceramic membrane filters. The unique combination of incredibly small pores in a durable ceramic material makes the PicoHelix the ideal choice for challenging water treatment and molecular separation applications. Cerahelix filters are being employed for industrial water-reuse, organic solvent separations, and concentration of bio-based chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The high treatment efficiency achieved by PicoHelix membranes is a result of a patented biotechnology that uses DNA to form the pores in the membrane. The resulting pores are linear and nearly identical in diameter (0.6 to 0.8nm). These characteristics combine to make a membrane that operates at a higher flow rate and utilizes less energy than normal polymeric membrane filters. The narrow range of pore diameters separates molecules that are close to each other in size, extending the cutoff range beyond what is currently achievable by ceramic membranes. This allows Cerahelix ceramic membrane filters to separate salts, metal ions and organic molecules that are dissolved in various types of process water. The durability of Cerahelix ceramic membrane filters allows them to operate under low pH conditions, high temperatures and high total dissolved solids concentrations making them ideally suited for treating process waters common to the Food & Beverage, Mining, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical, and Manufacturing industries.
Hydro Venture Partners invests in early-stage, water focused, technology companies that are applying visionary science and engineering to drive efficient water resource utilization across multiple sectors. Hydro Venture Partners leverages their water-focused technical, management and entrepreneurial experience to help accelerate the growth of innovative technology companies helping to solve the world’s water challenges.
