KGAL and Fluvicon unveil €100m water treatment platform

By Megan Brooks 07/08/2026 3 min read 20 views

KGAL Industries and fluvicon have launched a €100 million platform to provide industrial water treatment as a service across Europe, turning wastewater management into a repeatable infrastructure asset.

Partnership builds on forward‑osmosis technology

The Graz‑based firm, founded in 2013 as a spin‑off from the Montanuniversität Leoben, has spent more than a decade developing patented forward‑osmosis processes—namely Ionosmosis and Osmodialysis. These methods differ from conventional reverse osmosis by handling heavily contaminated effluents with far less energy and chemical use, while reducing fouling and scaling. Field‑deployed plants have already demonstrated that such waste streams can be treated economically, a fact investors consider essential when assessing infrastructure projects.

In the new arrangement, KGAL Industries, the industrial scaling unit of the KGAL Group, has taken an equity stake and will supply the structuring and financing needed to replicate the model throughout the continent. The platform’s first contract is active in Poland, where a subsidiary of a global nutrition group operates under a 12‑year agreement. The service turns a fermentation waste stream into two outputs: clean water that meets EU discharge standards and a concentrated biological residue that the client can reuse as a raw material.

Both parties stress that the offering is framed as a service, not a technology sale. Customers incur no capital expense and avoid the operational burden of running treatment plants; they simply purchase clean water, recovered resources and regulatory compliance. Future projects aim at sectors such as food and beverage, metals, surface treatment, textiles and agriculture, each following a standardised development and financing plan designed for efficient roll‑out.

Regulatory backdrop drives demand for Water‑as‑a‑Service

The timing of the platform aligns with tightening EU regulations. The revised Industrial Emissions Directive and the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive are introducing stricter discharge standards for manufacturing facilities across member states.

Because the service removes all capex and operational responsibilities from the tenant, it eases compliance and safeguards the tenancy and income stability of industrial properties. Developers can now market new facilities with Water‑as‑a‑Service built in, offering a clear advantage in a market where available industrial space is limited.

From a practical standpoint, a mid‑size plant in a German industrial park will no longer need to allocate millions of euros for its own treatment system. Instead, the landlord can bundle the service into the lease, ensuring the tenant meets regulatory standards without jeopardising cash flow. That shift may encourage more firms to expand or relocate, knowing the water compliance piece is already handled.

“After a decade of engineering and plants proving themselves in the field, this changes what fluvicon offers,” said Thomas Griessler, founder and CEO of the company. “Our customers no longer buy equipment; they buy clean water, recovered resources and compliance, with no capital outlay. With KGAL Industries as our structuring and financing partner, a model that works at one site can now be repeated across Europe, just as EU regulation makes sustainable water management unavoidable.”

Gaisar Gabdulatzianov, Investment Principal at KGAL Group, added: “This is what KGAL Industries exists to do: take technology that has proven itself industrially and give it the structure and capital to scale. Water is one of the defining resource questions facing European industry. Together with the firm, we have established a platform that transforms wastewater into clean water and valuable raw materials, with the ambition to reach more than €100 million in application volume.”

The platform’s €100 million funding target reflects both the capital intensity of building treatment facilities and the anticipated demand from regulated industries. By bundling the service with long‑term contracts, the partnership aims to create a new class of infrastructure asset that can attract institutional investors seeking stable, essential‑service returns.

Investors see the model as a way to add value to German industrial assets.