Ostara Nutrient Recovery Wins $14.5M From VantagePoint et al.

One industry’s waste is transformed into value for another industry.

Eric Wesoff May 31, 2012

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies is a clean water firm that extracts phosphorous, nitrogen, and other nutrients from wastewater and then recycles it into fertilizer.

The firm just completed a $14.5 million VC round led by VantagePoint Capital Partners, along with Frog Capital and a team of new investors including Waste Resources Fund L.P. VantagePoint venture partner Robert Kennedy, Jr. is on Ostara's board of directors.

Ostara's equipment can extract more than 90 percent of the phosphorus and 40 percent of the ammonia load from a sewage sludge stream of 500,000 liters per day, according to the firm. The resulting mixture is used to make roughly 500 kilograms of what the company calls ~~Soylent~~ Crystal Green, a slow-release fertilizer.

Ostara estimates that approximately 200 wastewater plants in North America and several hundred plants in Europe and the rest of the world are candidates for the technology. The firm looks to expand beyond waste water treatment plants to other industries.

The system is installed at Clean Water Services, a water utility with more than 500,000 customers in urban Washington County, west of Portland. Ostara's process provides revenue from the sale of the fertilizer, as well as reducing the O&M usually spent in de-scaling the equipment from the built-up nutrients. Phosphorous accumulates on equipment in what is called struvite scale and reduces plant performance and lifetime.

Wastewater is a new frontier for a handful of companies. Israel's Aqwise has new solutions for processing wastewater more efficiently. In Singapore, NEWater -- which makes up a small portion of the country's drinking water -- is recovered from the sewage system. Israel's Emefcy uses uses wastewater to power a fuel cell as it treats the water.