NI start-up Wizso awarded £74,000 from non-household water Market Improvement Fund

The sponsor for this trial is Southern Water with KR Social Research working alongside Wizso as a delivery partner for the trial.

The Market Improvement Fund (MIF) was established to fund and deliver innovative projects that will benefit the non-household water market and its customers.

In this round, the Strategic Panel, the senior industry group that own the fund, awarded £870k in total to eight successful projects. All applications were reviewed for eligibility and scored by the independent Selection Committee and subsequently approved by the Strategic Panel.

Wizso produces tablets which masks the colour and odour of urine, thereby removing the need to flush and thus saving water.

The Wizso story began in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic when Mark Gilligan, a civil engineer by profession identified water usage as the next big crisis facing the world.

The team worked with Queen's University Belfast to come up with the solution- an odour and colour masking tablet which fizzes in the toilet bowl leaving a pleasant, clean colour behind.

The MIF will fund an independent product trial for Wizso tablets in four non household locations to assess product adoption rates, water saved (using sensors from Aguardio as flush counters) and actual behavioural change around toilet flushing.

Mark Gilligan, Director and co-founder of Wizso, said: “We're delighted that Wizso's research project has been selected as part of round three of the Market Improvement Fund.

“We will be working with Southern Water, Aguardio and KRSR, as well as four participating businesses, to deliver both qualitative and quantitative results on reducing water use.”

Markus Lloyd, Market Improvement Fund Lead at MOSL, added: “On behalf of the Strategic Panel and Selection Committee, MOSL would like to congratulate Wizso for securing funding through the Market Improvement Fund. The purpose of the fund is to encourage innovation and drive improvements within the non-household market, and the Wizso solution certainly represents this. We look forward to seeing how the project progresses."

For more information visit, www.wizso.com or search for Wizso on LinkedIn or Facebook and WizsoSavesWater on Instagram and Twitter.

Visit https://mosl.co.uk/services/market-improvement/market-improvement-fund to find out more about the Market Improvement Fund.