Attracting European Investment

SouthWestSensor has attracted investment from SKion Water, a subsidiary of SKion GmbH, the investment company of German entrepreneur Susanne Klatten.

Dr Dirk Brusis, Managing Director at SKion Water, said: “We see a lot of potential in the technology developed by SouthWestSensor and are looking forward to supporting the excellent team in the next steps entering the market. Due to the wide range of applications, we see many opportunities for collaboration in our portfolio which should help SouthWestSensor to overcome a few of the hurdles young technology companies face in the water sector.”

SouthWestSensor chose Southampton Science Park as its base from which to grow in 2020. It aims to become a key enabler for the digitisation of the water industry, to help protect this precious resource and improve sustainability. It has developed a microfluidics-based approach for continuous monitoring of pollutants and nutrients in water, providing laboratory quality data at the point-of-need, and in doing so, helping customers make smarter water and wastewater management decisions.

The company’s CEO, Dr Oliver Hofmann, said: “We are absolutely delighted to welcome SKion Water on board, a highly respected investor with a shared vision of the pivotal role that advanced sensing solutions will play in improved water management and digitisation of this key industry. Apart from the investment itself and SKion's top-notch domain experience, we are already seeing the benefits of working with SKion's portfolio companies, having just completed a 3-months sensor deployment with one of them. This provides a strong basis for further growth and integrated product and service offerings to reach our ambitious short and mid-term commercial goals.”