SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Mar. 15, 2011 -- At the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco today and as part of its recently launched Veolia Innovation Accelerator (VIA) program, Veolia Environnement announced the first partnerships signed with some of the most innovative startups in the cleantech sector.
"Beyond the analysis kits we're creating specifically for Veolia Environnement, the partnership gives us access to a very broad market that we would have a much harder time penetrating alone."
Among these partnerships:
Envolure, a French startup specializing in the design and marketing of environmental analysis kits. Its innovation lies in a new, more efficient method -- 10 times faster and one-tenth of the cost -- for optimizing environmental assessments in the water and waste sectors. "The partnership we've just signed with Veolia is a powerful growth driver for us," explains Yves Dudal, Envolure's CEO. "Beyond the analysis kits we're creating specifically for Veolia Environnement, the partnership gives us access to a very broad market that we would have a much harder time penetrating alone."CoSMo Company (Complex Systems Modeling) has developed an innovative software platform to model and simulate complex systems. Urban modeling, that considers cities as an interconnection of overlapping networks (for transportation, water, waste, energy...), is a central application domain for CoSMo's technology allowing it to propose original solutions for sustainable cities. Dr. Eric Boix, the Chief Scientific Officer of CoSMo, said: "We are really thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Veolia Environnement on integrated modeling and simulation of cities. It is an exciting challenge for us to illustrate the power of our technology at an unprecedented scale, with major expected outcomes and impacts on citizens' daily life."
Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc., a young Canadian company based in Vancouver is an innovative leader in nutrient recovery and producer of environmentally friendly fertilizer. They will team up with Veolia Water, the world leader of water services and treatment, to develop and market innovative wastewater systems that create value while reducing environmental impact.
"Just a year after the launch of the VIA program, we are pleased with the very positive response from our partners and startups as well as the early results," says Philippe Martin, Veolia Environnement's Senior Vice-President, Research & Innovation. "The program has evaluated close to 200 applications resulting in five partnerships, and this is just the beginning."
Sail Venture Partners is one of the U.S. leading cleantech investment firms and has great respect for Veolia's long term leadership across all cleantech sectors and throughout the world. "We see the Veolia Innovation Accelerator as a very attractive way to help our portfolio companies achieve their potential. Sail believes that Veolia Environnement's approach to deploying innovation benefits everyone in the cleantech ecosystem, from the startup and its investors to the extensive set of clients that Veolia Environnement serves, promoting sustainability in the process," said Walter Schindler, a managing partner and founder.
As a service to all of Veolia Environnement's business units, VIA helps to identify, assess, and support the deployment of the best clean technologies to meet the needs of our clients and stakeholders. VIA engages with startups and investors throughout the three key phases of innovation.
1. Laboratory phase: Partners have access to a huge network of experts (850 researchers) and research capabilities to validate and possibly enhance their technologies.
2. Pilot phase: Veolia Environnement has more than 200 industrial pilots for the full-scale testing of solutions under realistic operating conditions.
3. Access to market: The bottom line is delivering the value of innovation through commercial deployment. Because of the diversity and geographical scope of its activities, in 77 countries, Veolia has the ability to disseminate green technologies widely and at scale.
"Our first year, marked by close collaboration with our internal and external partners and by these early results, points the way toward new, even more open collaboration arrangements, to meet our environmental challenges and accelerate the deployment of the most innovative clean technologies," concludes Philippe Martin.
Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE and NYSE: VE) is the worldwide reference in environmental solutions. With more than 315,000 employees the company has operations all around the world and provides tailored solutions to meet the needs of municipal and industrial customers in four complementary segments: water management, waste management, energy management and passenger transportation. Veolia Environnement recorded revenue of €34.8 billion in 2010. www.veolia.com
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