Brewery wastewater treatment startup NuTree launches crowdfunding campaign

You may recall us mentioning NuLeaf, a startup company with an innovative wastewater treatment system for breweries called NuTree, last month. At that time, NuLeaf was a semi-finalist for clean tech/circular economy event. If you thought it sounded cool and threw a vote their way, the company has now moved to the crowdfunding stage of development via the SeedInvest platform. Here’s the link.

What is NuLeaf?

Water solutions have remained largely unchanged for more than 100 years,  and effective water treatment is only available at a large scale. NuLeaf believes this is not only unacceptable, but that a better solution is right outside our window.

NuLeaf Tech wants to offer water treatment and recycling on a small scale with expandable units — all with naturally occurring plants and microbes. The NuTree is a self-powered system that needs only polluted water to provide reusable water, bioenergy and microgreens.

The core of the system is biomimicry, used in combination with the circular economy to implement a design inspired by nature.

Another key is modularity.

“Normally you spend millions on a treatment system that can treat X amount,” said Cofounder and CTO Ari Ochoa, a microbiologist and DIY engineer. “Once you surpass that, you need to shell out even more money for a new system. NuTrees can not only treat water at any scale, but expansion is easy and cheap.”

NuLeaf’s beachhead market is craft beer, a somewhat booming industry hindered by water costs. In some areas, NuTrees can have an ROI of one year to turn water pain into growth. After breweries, NuLeaf envisions expanding next into urban farming, agriculture, municipalities and rural living.

NuLeaf Tech is a DIY group turned startup. They’ve graduated from the accelerator RebelBio, run by SOSVentures, who are also participating in funding the round. Major milestones include a Patent pending status for a U.S. patent and agreements from Scottish brewery Jaw Brew and Silicon Valley brewery Steel Bonnet to implement pilot systems.

Here’s a video explanation if you are tired of reading.