Watergen signs deal with UAE’s Al Dhara to sell ‘water-from-air’ units to region
Partnership with Abu Dhabi-based multinational will target agriculture sector, offices and apartment buildings, hotels and industrial plants, Watergen says
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
Water-from-air startup Watergen said Sunday it has signed a strategic partnership with Emirati firm Al Dahra to export the Israeli solutions to the UAE and other regional countries.
The accord was signed last Wednesday in Abu Dhabi by Watergen’s president and CEO, Michael Mirilashvili, and Khadim Al Darei, vice chairman and co-founder of Al Dahra.
The partnership will target a variety of sectors, including agriculture, offices and apartment buildings, hotels and industrial plants, Watergen said in a statement.
The two parties had signed a memorandum of understanding in Israel in October, when a high-ranking delegation of Al Dahra executives visited Israel.
“With this agreement, we’re showing our two nations, the region, and the world, what is possible with peace,” said Mirilashvili in the statement.
Israel and the UAE normalized relations in September, as did Israel and Bahrain, paving the way for open business and trade ties in which technology will play a key role.
Watergen has developed a patented technology that enables the generation of clean drinking water in a cost-effective energy consumption manner. It uses a series of filters to purify the air. After the air is sucked in and chilled to extract its humidity, the water that forms is treated and transformed into clean drinking water. The technology uses a plastic heat exchanger rather than an aluminum one, which helps reduce costs; it also includes proprietary software that operates the devices.
The high temperatures and humidity of the UAE are ideal conditions for Watergen’s devices, which can produce up to 5,000 liters of clean drinking water per day, the company said in a statement.
Al Dahra is an Abu Dhabi-based multinational company, specializing in agribusiness and the cultivation, production, and trading of animal feed and other food commodities and end-to-end supply chain management. Serving a global customer base in the public and private sectors, and with a workforce of 5,000 employees, the firm operates in over 20 countries and caters to more than 45 markets.
In January, Watergen’s GENNY product was named winner of the Energy Efficiency Product of the Year in the 2020 Smart Home Mark of Excellence Awards at CES in Las Vegas.
