Public Funding for Waterscope Limited

WaterScope is developing a digital, rapid, versatile, bacterial testing system for drinking water testing, that anyone can use, in any location. Globally, over 2.2 billion people lack access to a safe water source and more than 2,100 children are estimated to die each day from diarrheal diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria present in water; this is more than HIV/AIDS and Malaria combined. Improved testing techniques and early identification of contaminated water sources are integral to solving this global challenge. Existing testing kits use research-lab techniques and equipment in a field-based setting. This approach includes many complex preparation and handling steps and requires over 24 hours of incubation to grow bacterial colonies until they are visible by eye. This results in the tests being expensive, complex, prone to error, and slow. Alternatively, water sources have to be sent for processing in central labs, which results in a large proportion of the cost being spent on logistics, and lab technician costs, with tests costing as much as 30 USD per sample. Our innovative device provides a faster, low cost, versatile, reliable and connected test result. The WaterScope testing kit consists of two core components: a cartridge and membrane holder to enable easy sample collection and preparation in the field (eliminating complex sterilisation and processing steps); and a testing system which includes a microscope and a machine learning algorithm to identify bacterial presence. The cartridge enables testing of a variety of different bacteria including E. coli, Pseudomonas, Cholera, and also antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The testing kit contains an embedded IoT module which currently operates in 165 countries, facilitating the automatic upload of testing data. This allows stakeholders to view the water quality results in real-time as well as map the data and analyse trends, whilst accessing all of the results of tests done within their organisation or community network. The project proposed will develop our current prototype from TRL level 6 to TRL level 9\. WaterScope is a University of Cambridge spin-out and has raised over £700K of non-dilutive funding over the last 4 years. In particular, we have made phenomenal progress in 2020 testing our prototype in South Africa, Tanzania, and Ethiopia through a previous Innovate GCRF phase 1 project. The project proposed will confirm market feasibility, to allow us to begin mass manufacturing to begin commercialisation after the project's 18-month completion.

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