Industrial Phycology, the innovative Bath firm that recently won a major national business competition, has been awarded a coveted place on one of the world’s most prestigious accelerator programmes and the chance to break into the lucrative US market.
The firm, based at Bath’s SETsquared innovation hub, is taking part in MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) eTeam programme – a scheme open only to the most-promising start-ups from across the world. 
Industrial Phycology, which uses algae to recover valuable resources from wastewater, is now being immersed in an intensive, two-week accelerator programme.
MIT is recognised as one of the world’s top research universities whose alumni have founded or co-founded companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, Dropbox and Bose.
World-class MIT practitioners and lecturers educate and mentor the start-ups on the scheme, introducing them to entrepreneurs and investors in MIT and Massachusetts’ extensive ecosystem of executives, investors and entrepreneurs.
Industrial Phycology, along with iGeolise, a firm based in Southampton’s SETsquared centre, secured the places after impressing SETsquared judges with their pitching skills and business plans.
SETsquared has just two places on the scheme to allocate each year.
SETsquared innovation director Simon Bond said: “It’s always an incredibly tough decision picking just two companies from our talent pool to take part in the programme. The quality of businesses among our five incubators is so high that it does make competition fierce.
“However, these two start-ups in particular have displayed that they are ready and raring to ‘take on the States’ and we believe they are the perfect candidates.
“The US market is a notoriously tough one to crack so taking part in this programme will give Industrial Phycology and iGeolise the very best start on that journey.”
Dr Dan Murray from Industrial Phycology said: “The USA takes a much more enthusiastic view of industrial sciences, with large amounts of public and private investment funnelled in to the area. It’s therefore a market we’re very keen to tap into going forward.
“Attending the MIT scheme will allow us to meet and learn from the best science and technology companies in the world and meet the people who have supported them. We will then bring all this new knowledge home and apply it to help grow our company.”
Industrial Phycology has produced a prototype of its innovative water system which is being trailed by Wessex Water. It is also in discussion with a number of other interested water companies and primary technology suppliers who are awaiting the results of our trial.
Its customers are in the waste water treatment industry but the firm says applications in other industries will be possible in the future.
