A patented wastewater metal recovery process from the University of Strathclyde. Lab-validated. PCT-stage patent. Chemistry an order of magnitude better than competing technologies. A previous commercialisation assessment had selected the wrong beachhead market. The commercial case to move through the public funding pathway did not yet exist in fundable form.
What Hatch did
Brought in as Commercial Champion, Hatch embedded across every decision from qualification through company creation funding and into pre-spinout preparation. Engineering and commercial work ran together from day one, the modular treatment unit designed alongside the market strategy, not after it.
The beachhead was reselected. Industrial plating and circuit-board manufacture chosen over the previous recommendation, shorter deployment timelines, accessible unit economics, hundreds of addressable sites across the UK and Europe. Hatch then wrote and won the company creation funding bid, secured an international PCB manufacturer to host the demonstrator across two UK sites, and built a service-revenue business model, customers pay per cubic metre treated or per kilogram of metal recovered aligned to what the technology can actually deliver.
Where it stands
Selected for Scottish Enterprise company creation funding. Co-investment raise in progress. Spinout formation targeted 2027. Findings remain commercially confidential.
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