WIN announces that five water innovation projects have been awarded EU funding through Neptune

104 European SMEs and Entrepreneurs submitted applications under the NEPTUNE Blue Growth Accelerator Call in 2017. In total, close to 200 European companies have applied for Neptune in 2017.

The projects could be granted both financial support and business development support from e g WIN. We had several high-quality applications and eventually the following projects were selected for Neptune funding:

• DiaPure AB - CyloP-Smart filters for recover phosphorus from wastewater.
• 4ITAB and Vultus AB - Integrated coastal monitoring.
• FloCell AB - Large-scale optimisation of chemical precipitation in water and sewage plants on the international market.
• EPFF AB - Prevention of biofouling in marine and coastal heat exchangers.
• Watersprint AB - The future water recycling product for households combining two patented technologies.

The projects are granted totally 250 000 Euro divided between the five projects.

- Neptune has given us opportunities to develop our concept to an international market and a shorter time-to-market, says Björn Olsson, MD at FloCell AB

- Win-Win for Watersprint, Sofi Filtration, WIN and the world with the Neptune sponsored water cleaner for households. Without the Neptune contribution, our combined water filtration and water disinfection product would have become a reality significantly later. Now, we have a good opportunity, together with our American partner, to immediately investigate if our product is good enough for US households, says Linda Kokkola, COO at Watersprint.

Moreover, the projects could also apply for coaching and mentoring services from WIN and other cluster members. In total, ten WIN project have been granted coaching from WIN.

The financing as well as the coaching and mentoring support will be one significant step to help these innovative companies to succeed – to everyone´s benefit.

- We are proud to give these companies additional support and resourses on their way to success. The financial support and coaching in combination with international contacts from the Neptune project create great opportunities for the companies, says Maria Sätherström Lantz, Manager at WIN.

The Neptune project has been a huge success in terms of number of applications and cross-border cooperations. There were certain key elements that made Neptune attractive for the entrepreneurs:

• The accelerator approach with a simplified process to submit, shortened application and a time to grant of less than 3 months;
• The cross-sectoral and cross-national dimensions, which allow SMEs from different sectors and countries to find complementarities in a joint project to develop innovative technologies, services and products;
• The great potential for innovation and economic growth of the Blue Economy;
• The possibility to finance prototype and demonstration which are, by far, the most requested types of support.