Halosource, the Bothell, WA-based company with a cheap and simple technology for purifying water in developing countries, has raised another $10 million in a venture financing that could be worth as much as $15 million, Xconomy has learned.
The investment is being led by Prime Partners Asia Merchant Capital of Singapore, according to Halosource’s chief financial officer, James Thompson. The financing, a Series D round, includes existing investors, although a majority of the money is coming from new investors, Thompson says. Halosource has a long list of investors that includes Credit Suisse, Siemens, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and a few notable Seattle investors—Alexander Hutton Venture Partners, Buerk Dale Victor, and WRF Capital. The company has now raised about $30 million since 2007.
Roughly 1 billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water, and this is the root cause of a variety of illnesses that kill an estimated 2.2 million people a year, according to the United Nations. But as more people emerge from poverty, businesses like Halosource have discovered they are demanding consumer products to provide them with clean water. The market is worth an estimated $18 billion worldwide, and growing at a clip of 19 percent annually, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan.
Halosource has been a pioneer in this emerging market over the past couple years, with a product it calls Halopure. The technology is now being used to purify water for about 4 million people in India. That’s about twice as many people as who were using it a year earlier, Thompson says. Halosource is privately held and doesn’t disclose its sales figures, although Thompson said the company recently recorded its first profitable month, and that it is aiming to reach sustainable profitability in the near future. The company has about 100 employees now, and will look to hire a few more with this new shot of cash.
“This is capital that will continue to fuel our growth globally,” Thompson says. “We want to build a great company around a significant need in the marketplace.”
I wrote about a big break Halosource got back in March, when it was certified as safe and effective by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It’s not really that strategically important for Halosource in the U.S., where we take clean water for granted, but it was a key
