A spin-out from NUI Galway, VorTech Water Solutions is a company that is addressing the world’s leading water and wastewater challenges through the development of innovative, cost effective solutions leading to increased sustainability of the industry. Since the company was founded in 2019, it has made tremendous progress and this has not gone unnoticed having won an array of industry awards particularly in the last few months.
Awards
In November 2020, VorTech won SEAI’s Excellence in Energy Research and Innovation Award. A month later, silver in the EmergeTech category at the National Startup Awards was secured and now, the company’s most recent success was just two weeks ago at The Irish Times Innovations Awards. VorTech not only scooped one but two awards on the day— Founder and CEO, Sean Mulligan, explains that “we were delighted when we won the sustainability category, but particularly excited when we found out that we had also won the Social Innovation Award!”. Mulligan continued to say “our long-term ambition is to develop a world class centre of excellence for innovation in the water sector, leading to green job creation and exports of affordable and sustainable products and services to help increase climate resilience of the water industry. The awards recognise these efforts, and we are honoured to have received them.”
Good timing of industry competitions can be a great way to increase national and international recognition and credibility before a new product launch, scale-up or when raising investment according to Mulligan. He also emphasises that after months, if not years, of intense work in a start-up, entering awards can be a great way to reflect on progress and boost the morale of the start-up team.
Where it All Began
As already mentioned the company are a spin-out from NUI Galway and are currently based in the Galway Business Innovation Centre on the NUI Galway campus. In the same year that VorTech was founded, the company became a High Potential Start Up (HPSU) client with Enterprise Ireland. WestBIC supported VorTech during the application process for this.
The Future
VorTech Water Solutions have several very exciting projects underway in Ireland and the UK, to as far away as the Middle East and New Zealand. The company are also currently engaged in the design of significant wastewater treatment projects in India using their technology and services. Mulligan explains that “the cost of electricity and its carbon footprint in this region is significant and therefore our solutions have the potential to address a real challenge by reducing energy costs and generating 100% renewable energy at the facilities through hydroelectric power.”
Mulligan also revealed that they have a very exciting pipeline of new IP and research that they will be developing into products and services over the coming years to bolster the brand name in the global market.
Support
Sean Mulligan finished by saying that “during our journey to date, we have had amazing support from our families, friends, partners/collaborators, suppliers, and clients and we are very grateful for their continuous support.” The company would also like to extend a special thanks to NUI Galway, Enterprise Ireland, SEAI, Ward and Burke Ltd, Irish Water, Xylem Ireland, ABP Food Group, CADFEM Ireland Ltd, SQ Fabs Ltd and E Lally Ltd.
WestBIC would like to wish Sean and the VorTech team continued success in the future!
More info on VorTech can be found on their website: https://vortechws.com
