The Water Innovation Fund has revealed the twenty finalists of its second Water Discovery Challenge, each set to receive up to £100,000 in seed funding as part of a wider £7.5 million programme running over 20 months.
Run by Ofwat, the scheme is meant to pull outside expertise into an industry that innovators often find hard to break into. This year’s cohort spans academics, energy specialists, farmers and environmental consultants, all pitching ideas aimed at long standing operational problems, from pollution detection to sludge disposal to network resilience.
Among the twenty finalists are:
- Daphne Water Solutions, working with ATG Group, which is testing Daphnia, tiny freshwater crustaceans, as a natural way to strip pharmaceuticals, microplastics and forever chemicals out of wastewater without added chemicals or energy.
- Rheya Labs, developing battery backup systems for sewage pumping stations that keep pumps running during power outages, paired with machine learning that aims to flag equipment failures before they cause spills.
- University of Glasgow’s Lunasonic project, which uses ultrasound to generate microscopic bubbles capable of breaking persistent organic pollutants down into carbon dioxide and harmless minerals, technology originally built to purify frozen lunar water for a future moon base.
- Entocycle, exploring whether black soldier fly larvae can remove contaminants from sewage sludge more cheaply than current methods, timed to coincide with a UK consultation on reforming sludge rules.
Award amounts across the twenty projects go up to £100,000. The support package includes seven months of mentoring aimed at turning ideas into viable businesses, alongside sessions on data and commercial skills, plus direct guidance from water sector experts.
As many as 10 finalist teams will be chosen in April 2027 to move into a second stage, each receiving up to £550,000 to keep developing and testing their solutions. Those selected will also get five further months of non financial support and sector mentorship, intended to give the strongest ideas the best chance of reaching commercial launch across the water sector.
