Pitch given by Cecile Dekeuwer in March 2021 for the Tech Tour Community, the largest investororiented tech start-ups community in Europe, that connects entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate partners.
Cecile Dekeuwer introduces herself as the CEO and founder of WeCo, a company that creates and develops “the water flush toilets of the future”. The start-up has the ambition to revolutionise the sanitation industry and occupy a leadership position on the world market. Its technology is beyond traditional industry offerings (sewered, dry, chemical toilets). The company aims to help achieving development goals on water sanitations (SDG 5 & 6 & 11) by reducing the water waste, supporting gender equalities and encouraging the development of sustainable cities.
The company was created in 2014. It currently involves 2 teams: one dedicated to the sales and marketing, today mostly active on the European market (France, Germany) and soon to the world market (Africa, India, China). The other one is the R&D and Engineering team, constituted by experienced engineers in biology, chemistry, water industry… WeCo toilets combine ecological and electrochemical equipment, which treat and recycle on site the wastewater into clean water. It destroys virus and bacteria, and within 2h, the water is treated and ready to be used as a new flush. Its technology is innovative and require no linking to sewer networks.
The firm’s goal is to solve consumer’s pain due to wasting billions of drinkable water to flush, and having no reliable water flush toilets especially in emerging cities where there is no sewerage and no water to waste. Its main clients are schools, cities, construction sites, trains, boats… in the need of sustainable off-grid toilets with flush. It also attracts real estate promoters, architects who are seeking for this innovative and ecological technology for their buildings.
WeCo has started a Series A fundraising campaign of 2 million € in order to continue the investments in the R&D, the manufacturing and engineering development, the sales and marketing, the intellectual property, the human resources as well as the certifications.