Founded by married Ph.D. couple Jonathan Levine and Theresa Dankovich, Folia Water uses nano-silver-coated paper to create a coffee-filter like product that makes water potable in minutes. The filters cost pennies, can be manufactured at scale using existing paper mills, and take zero power to filter water. The same technology can be used in hospitals, at food processing plants, and in packaging.

You can find their Angel List profile here.

I invested in this company because I like the founders, the team, and the problem they’re solving. There’s more to be figured out on the business model but I believe real value can be created by working with strong founders addressing real problems.viagra pilule

Investing in early-stage, university-born innovations can be challenging for reasons listed here. I make an exception here because the founders have managed to do the hard part: go beyond the experimental prototype and into mass-manufacturing quickly and at low cost.

Access to water will get worse.

Access to safe water remains an unsolved problem for the world, with 1 in 4 health care facilities globally lacking basic water services, 30% of the planet lacking access to safely-managed drinking water services and 60% lacking access to safel-managed sanitation facilities. More than 80% of wastewater resulting from human activities is discharged into rivers or sea without any pollution removal*.

Consider rising population, increasing ground and water pollution from industry, increasing usage, and cities around the world struggling to balance their budgets, and you’ll see why access to clean water could deteriorate from Chittagong to Chicago.

Climate change only makes things worse, making dry areas drier and precipitation more variable and extreme*. This is why I’ll continue to be on the lookout for more climate-adaptation opportunities around water.