His First Two Inventions Made Billions - Number Three Just Went Live

About this episode

Pierre Côté discusses his groundbreaking inventions in water technology and his new venture with algae.

How Did Pierre Côté Build Two Unicorn Water Technologies - and Why Is He Now Betting on Algae? Pierre Côté is arguably the most successful water technology inventor alive. With over 100 patents across four decades, he created ZeeWeed (the membrane that launched the $3.63 billion MBR market) and co-invented ZeeLung (anchoring the ~$500 million MABR market). Now in his seventies, he's co-founded AlgaFilm Technologies to tackle nutrient removal with algae biofilm. 🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️ 🧬 Two unicorn technologies from one inventor — ZeeWeed created the MBR category ($3.63B market), ZeeLung anchors MABR (~$500M and growing) 💰 $689 million exit — GE Water acquired Zenon in 2006 at 3.29x revenue, despite Zenon being loss-making 🌿 AlgaFilm's Algae Forest — patented inverted-cone photobioreactors with 12:1 surface-area-to-footprint ratio, claiming 80% energy reduction 📊 Forced regulatory demand — San Francisco Bay faces $10.8B in nutrient removal costs; Netherlands spending €2.8B in two years; 8,000+ US lagoons need upgrades 🏭 Competitive validation — Gross-Wen Technologies at TRL 9 with 30+ installations and $15M annual revenue proves the algae biofilm category ❄️ The winter test —…

People in this episode

Host: Antoine Walter

Guest: Pierre Côté

Topics covered

• water technology
• algae biofilm
• nutrient removal
• innovation
• environmental engineering

Keywords

• water technology
• ZeeWeed
• ZeeLung
• algae
• nutrient removal
• bioreactors
• innovation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: AlgaFilm Technologies, GE Water, Zenon Environmental

Products: ZeeWeed, ZeeLung

Places: San Francisco Bay, Netherlands, Kingsville, Ontario

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