2026 BREW Cohort Solving Wide Array of Water Challenges

Milwaukee, WI, FEB. 17, 2026 – From predictive pipe modeling to rainwater monitoring to turning wastewater into fertilizer, the 11 global companies in The Water Council’s BREW 2.0 2026 cohort are solving a wide variety of pressing water challenges.

The cohort, representing eight countries in North America and Europe, will receive several weeks of targeted training in topics like sales, company culture, pitching and more. The program will kick off in April with a three-day session in Milwaukee to help the participants build cohort bonds, grow relationships with the program leaders and begin leveraging the rich connections in The Water Council’s network.

At the end of the program, the cohort will spend a week in Milwaukee for additional training, one-on-one meetings, a public showcase scheduled for June 17 and a curated investor event.

“BREW 2.0 refreshes the traditional accelerator model, helping our entrepreneurs bridge the gap between breakthrough water tech with proof of market viability and the global community of end-users,” said Katie Kollhoff Mouat, director of innovation programs at The Water Council.

Since its launch in 2021, BREW 2.0 has helped nearly 50 market-ready or early in-market companies acquire critical skills, scale their networks and prepare for growth. The program is sponsored by Beckhoff Automation and Xylem with programmatic support from Thales Water Advisors.

Here are the 11 companies of the 2026 cohort:

• Aquantix (Denver, Colorado, USA) streamlines water filter management with a smart, cloud-based monitoring platform that remotely tracks filter health, forecasts replacement needs, and provides transparency for facility managers and the public.
• Bakal (Zacatecas, Mexico) is a patented industrial engineering platform that transforms brewing byproducts into high-value circular solutions, recovering water and generating sustainable inputs for agriculture and livestock at industrial scale.
• Brightwater Tools (Brattleboro, Vermont, USA) creates innovative and scalable treatment technologies that capture, sanitize and filter valuable resources from high-strength liquid waste streams, turning them into concentrated fertilizer products.
• Evodrop (Zurich, Switzerland) produces advanced water treatment systems combining proprietary microfiltration with short-contact PFAS and TFAS filtration, as well as a food-grade malic acid-based descaling technology.
• Fluid Analytics (Mountain View, California, USA) offers AquaGrid, a catchment-scale intelligence platform for urban water systems integrating AI-based infrastructure inspection, real-time sensing and environmental data to give utilities a unified, actionable view of sewer, stormwater and surface-water risk.
• Infractiv (Sunnyvale, California, USA) delivers accurate predictive pipe modeling to help water systems reduce water loss and improve asset planning.
• Klarifi (Copenhagen, Denmark) curates data-driven market intelligence for wastewater experts.
• Our Rainwater (Exeter, United Kingdom) helps cities and utilities manage rainwater where it falls, reducing flooding, sewer overflows and drought risk through data-driven rainwater infrastructure.
• Purgatoria (Heerde, Netherlands) has a patented sieve solution that removes microplastics from sewage while increasing the capacity of the sewage treatment plant.
• Waterjade (Trento, Italy) provides a basin-scale digital twin that empowers water managers to independently model and forecast supply at springs, wells and reservoirs.
• Xatoms (Toronto, Canada) discovers and deploys materials for water purification using proprietary AI and quantum chemistry algorithms.

About The Water Council:
The Water Council (TWC) is a global hub dedicated to solving critical water challenges by driving innovation in freshwater technology and advancing water stewardship. Built on more than a century of innovation, TWC has coalesced one of the most concentrated and mature water technology clusters in the world from its headquarters at the Global Water Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Recognizing the need for smarter and more sustainable use of water worldwide, TWC also promotes water stewardship as a natural complement to water innovation in the effort to preserve freshwater resources in the Midwest and around the world. Today, The Water Council has established itself as a global leader in the water industry and one of America’s premier economic development clusters as recognized by government agencies, Brookings and the Harvard Business School.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.