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Deal Maker of the Year Awards 2012 WINNER - LUXEMBOURG


DEAL: Epuramat raises €8.3M in a B-Round financing transaction


NAME: Bogdan Serban COMPANY: Epuramat S.A. POSITION: CEO


AREA OF EXPERTISE: Start-up companies EMAIL: bogdan.serban@epuramat.com


FIRM PROFILE:


Epuramat is a Luxembourgish cleantech company providing compact, energy-efficient and chemicals- free water and wastewater treatment solutions for municipal and industrial applications.


Epuramat systems are based on our patented ExSep® technology, which is based on gravity and fluid dynamics and which allows making primary wastewater treatments with very high particle separation efficiency. This innovative technology led to the creation of the Box4Water, a complete wastewater treatment plant, including sludge dewatering, fully integrated in one standard container. This containerized and compact solution accommodates a powerful plant that dispenses the use of chemicals and that is offered with a short manufacturing time and at an attractive cost.


These compact systems are ideally suited for remote communities without access to public sewer, or for industries with high demand for fresh water which can thus reuse their own purified process water and save expenses. The Box4Water may also be used easily and effectively to relieve overloaded wastewater treatment plants and extend their capacity. In addition, Epuramat has started developing oil-water separation systems based on the ExSep® technology.


Epuramat developed activities in Europe and North America and since the launch of the product two years ago, it has sold more than 20 Box4Water to industrial and municipal customers. The company aims to continue its growth on this market but also to focus on oil-water separation. Epuramat expects to serve this new market from 2013.


BIO:


Bogdan Serban holds an engineering degree and a master’s degree in electronics and telecommunications, and has more than 20 years of experience in industrial global-scale business. He has proven executive management experience in start-up environments and developed several technical innovations that have been patented and successfully marketed and commercialized.


Bogdan Serban joined Epuramat in 2010 as CEO in order to share his substantial know-how in the areas of business expansion and technical research and development. Thanks to the new strategy and market approach he has implemented into the company, Epuramat is today in position to realize its growth plan and impose itself as a recognized international player.


16


DEAL OVERVIEW Q


Please summarise the transaction


Epuramat closed an 8.3 Million € B-round financing led by Bright Capital, a worldwide active Venture Capitalist, and the first tranche has already been used to kick off the development of our new products. Current shareholders, the building materials producer Chaux de Contern and international cleantech venture capital group I2BF Global Ventures, keep their existing company shares and will further accompany Epuramat strategic development.


How does the transaction fit in with your overall business strategy and what are your plans following the transaction?


Q


The Epuramat management team is continuously focusing on matching innovation and market practical realities and becoming a recognised international player on the wastewater treatment market. To achieve this, our overall strategy consists to develop our existing business segments, such as wastewater treatment for communities and industrial companies, but also to look for new applications and markets for our innovative ExSep® technology.


The Box4Water production had already become a profitable activity, allowing Epuramat to achieve positive financial results. However, we wanted to expand our activities and to introduce our technology on a new growth market that we could efficiently address: the oil-water separation. In view of our growth targets and our market objectives, we needed new cash injection for this challenging sector. Thus, this B-round financing allows Epuramat to focus actively and efficiently on this market and the funds


enable us in particular to strengthen our R&D activities and to conduct advanced trials. On the other hand, the funding will allow us to support our sales and marketing actions, to be finally able to provide our unique solution on the oil-water separation market, which is expected to participate actively to the company revenue projections in the next few years.


Q


What are your thoughts and predictions within your sector for 2013 and beyond?


Freshwater reserves are becoming scarcer, pollution is growing and worldwide regulations for water direct discharge into the natural environment are getting stricter. The provision of clean water is thus a more and more fundamental question for communities and industrial companies. We can also note that the decentralization of water treatments has become more popular because of the needs to make the treatments where the water is polluted, in particular due to the considerable costs and feasibility difficulties relative to wastewater sewage networks. The market for decentralized wastewater treatment has therefore recently received more attention, and should continue to increase in the next few years.


The situation is the same in the field of oil-water separation. This segment has a huge market potential, considering the reduced operational costs and the high efficiency our technology brings, enabling even to reactivate already closed oil fields. All these fields produce a lot of water, and oil production companies are thus looking for solutions which allow efficient and economic oil-water separation. And that is what we want to provide in the following years, notably being helped by this B-round financing.


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