James Cowper sponsorship turns on tap for Solaqua
Thames Valley accountants and business advisers James Cowper has sponsored the annual Venturefest ‘Best of British Innovation Awards’, held at the end of June in Oxford. The firm sponsored the Silver Medal award, given to Solaqua, a company developing a solar-powered water desalination plant.
Solaqua, with offices in the UK and Spain, is at the forefront of desalination technology with its solar powered ‘flostil’ technology. Solaqua’s flostil desalination technology can provide up to one million litres of fresh drinking water using just the power of the sun.
Steve Clarke, managing partner at James Cowper said: “James Cowper has been involved with the annual Venturefest conference for the past 10 years and we have seen some terrific ideas over this period. Everyone was impressed by what we saw with Solaqua and this award was well deserved.”
Solaqua’s technology addresses one of the fundamental issues that face the world now and in the future – an increasing demand for increasing scarce water. Desalination plants are currently very expensive to build and come with very high annual operating costs. Solaqua’s technology once installed has no annual operating costs and no CO2 emissions, using sunlight and gravity alone. It is capable of providing one million litres of fresh drinking water a day.
Barry Coots, CEO of Solaqua said: “For the first time in human history we can start to make serious use of the vast water resource locked up in the oceans. This prestigious prize will shout to the world and tell them how to turn on the tap.”
Venturefest is an annual showcase event held in Oxford that brings entrepreneurs, investors and advisers together. Held on 23 June 2010 it attracted more than 1500 people to its ‘technology showcase’ exhibition. Half of all companies attending Venturefest attracted investor funding.
Solaqua is currently looking for £1.5m of funding to take its ‘flostil’ technology through to concept stage. Barry adds: “Venturefest worked very well for us and we received a lot of interest in the technology. We are now in discussions with a number of potential investors.”
Steve Clark, Partner, James Cowper LLP, Tel: +44 (0)1865 200500 or emaill sclarke@jamescowper.co.uk
13.07.2010