On Thursday, Pennsylvania water technology firm Aquatech announced a joint venture with Upwell Water, an asset manager that commits client capital to water-focused businesses, and whose investment team includes executives of water treatment businesses, water utilities, and investment firms including Goldman Sachs, TPG, and BAML. The joint venture will provide outsourced water treatment-as-a-service to clients at no upfront cost to them.
The joint venture, AQUIOS (Aquatech Upwell Infrastructure Outsourcing) platform, will provide various outsourced water solutions, including water and energy purchase agreements, and the leasing and rental of mobile and decentralized treatment plants with the aim of reducing costs and risks of water operations, while also helping customers meet sustainability targets.
According to Aquatech, AQUIOS will also acquire and retrofit existing water facilities to improve operating performance.
“The need for having long-term reliability, particularly as waters become more complex and difficult to treat, is paramount. Our partnership with Upwell will allow us to offer Water Technology as a Service, providing a compelling solution to meet critical treatment needs with an accountable partner delivering a predictable cost of water operations and peace of mind to our customers,” Aquatech Managing Director Devesh Sharma.
“Our customers get what they need – reliability of water treatment and payment over time as they would for any utility service, but with a holistic approach integrating plant design and long-term operational service from a single provider. That makes getting better water treatment simple,” Sharma said.
Aquatech expects to deploy capital in support of more than $500 million in water infrastructure through AQUIOS to improve water and wastewater treatment in the next few years. Over the course of its 40 years in providing desalination, water reuse, and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) purification methods, the company has completed more than 2,000 projects in 60 countries. The company serves clients in municipal infrastructure, power generation, petrochemicals, upstream oil and gas, metals and mining, and customer products.
Its venture capital, Upwell Water owns both operating and new-build water assets and expects to deploy $1 billion in near-term capital.
