What do San Francisco and Chicago have in common? They’re home to organizations focused on ensuring that water technology entrepreneurs succeed. By creating a new water innovation pipeline from the West Coast to the Fresh Coast, Imagine H2O and Current will work together to support startups leveraging innovation to solve global water challenges.
The goal of this new partnership is to provide entrepreneurs with the opportunities, tools and resources to build strong water businesses and deploy their solutions. Moving beyond their previous event collaborations, the partnership will facilitate access to each others’ programming and marketing resources, giving affiliated innovators an even greater chance to succeed.
Leigh Madeira, Vice President of Imagine H2O remarked, “Imagine H2O strives to develop and deploy water innovation and a partnership with Current helps put the pieces in place for more of our entrepreneurs to deploy their solutions in the Great Lakes region and beyond.”
Alaina Harkness, Executive Director of Current, added, “Imagine H2O and Current share a goal: to build a thriving water innovation ecosystem. I’m thrilled to be deepening our partnership. It will boost startups across our portfolios and strengthen our shared network of water problem solvers.”
While this is a new partnership between Imagine H2O and Current, both organizations have worked with and benefitted many of the same innovators already. StormSensor, for example, participated in Imagine H2O’s Accelerator and Urban Water Challenge before joining Current as a Startup Partner. “Working with both Imagine H2O and Current allowed us to leverage a powerhouse duo that together provided us with unparalleled industry visibility, access to mentors, investors and customers, millions of dollars of funding, and a new board member,” stated Erin Rothman, CEO of StormSensor.
Both organizations have exciting programming coming up, so be sure you stay up to date by following us on LinkedIn and joining our mailing lists! If you would like to get involved with both Imagine H2O and Current, contact Leigh Madeira and George Brigandi.
Background on Both Organizations
Imagine H2O is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people to deploy and develop innovation to solve water challenges globally. The organization’s water innovation accelerator provides entrepreneurs with the resources, insight and visibility to launch and scale water solutions. By partnering with industry and policy experts and a global network of customers and investors, Imagine H2O has become a proven path to market for emerging water technology businesses. Since 2009, we have supported 150+ startups who have deployed their solutions in 50+ countries and have raised more than $575M in investment.
Current is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to grow the blue economy, accelerate innovation, and solve pressing water challenges. They collaborate with corporations, universities, nonprofits and governments to develop solutions that would be too risky or even impossible to undertake alone. Current is developing programming to invest in the blue economy (from education to entrepreneurship), hosts monthly and annual events to inform the water innovation ecosystem, like the Innovators Showcase and Chicago Water Week, and also leads several pilot projects, like H2NOW, an effort to build real-time water quality monitoring platforms for urban rivers.
