TreaTech: An EIC Accelerator Story of Turning Sludge Into Gas

TreaTech SA, a spin-off of the Swiss federal institute of technology in Lausanne (EPFL), heats wet waste such as sewage sludge to supercritical conditions and passes it over a catalyst, turning the organic matter into methane-rich gas within minutes and separating out water and minerals. It was selected in the EIC Accelerator pilot's Green Deal cut-off of 19 May 2020 with blended finance, then still under its old name TreaTech Sàrl, according to the European Commission's list of selected companies, which names it as the only company on the project. The grant, for a project called WAS2VAL, ran from 1 November 2020 to 31 March 2024 with an EU contribution of €2,425,795.75 towards a total cost of €4,887,367, according to CORDIS.

The equity half of the award did arrive. The EIC Fund was one of the investors in TreaTech's CHF 9 million Series A in June 2023, according to the company's announcement as carried by H2O Global News and by ENGIE, a co-investor. The fund lists TreaTech in its official portfolio, and the Swiss commercial register shows it as a shareholder with 38,039 preferred shares in July 2023. The amount the EIC Fund paid is not public.

Where TreaTech Stands Now

TreaTech is active. On 13 August 2026 its shareholders approved an ordinary capital increase that created 245,598 new Series A2 preferred shares, lifting the share capital to CHF 161,446, and moved the seat from Lonay to Préverenges, according to the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce entry published on 27 August 2026 and shown on Zefix, the federal register. The same entry records that Montrose chief executive Vijay Manthripragada and co-founder Raquel Zambrano Varela left the board, and that Philippe Vercherin of Paris joined it. The new shares make up 38% of the enlarged share count. Who bought them, and at what price, is not published, and TreaTech has not announced the round on its news page, whose latest entries date from September 2025.

That matches what the company said a year earlier. In June 2025 Juillard told ENGIE that TreaTech was "in the middle of raising funds", employed about fifteen people and had about fifty prospects in its customer database. In December 2023 he had told EPFL that the team counted twelve.

The Technology: Gas From Waste in Minutes, Not Weeks

Anaerobic digestion, the usual way to make gas from sewage, takes weeks, the CORDIS objective notes, and incineration, the standard disposal route for difficult waste, recovers neither the water nor storable energy, the final report argues. TreaTech's process, catalytic hydrothermal gasification, pumps the wet waste to conditions where water becomes supercritical. The minerals fall out as salts, and the organic fraction is converted over a catalyst into a gas of methane and CO2 that can be injected into the gas grid, according to the project's final report on CORDIS. A November 2025 overview by the French energy association ATEE gives the operating point as 250 bar and 450°C and lists TreaTech alongside other European developers of the method, including SCW Systems in the Netherlands, according to its webinar slides.

The approach builds on two lines of research. An EPFL professor filed the original patent on supercritical treatment of liquid waste, the first lab prototype was built in an EPFL chemical engineering lab from 2016, and from 2018 TreaTech worked with the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), which has developed catalytic hydrothermal gasification since the early 2000s, according to EPFL's technology transfer office. ENGIE's own article on the 2023 investment describes the same EPFL and PSI origins.

The headline claims are TreaTech's own. The CORDIS objective promised "40% lower CAPEX, 50% lower OPEX, and 94% lower CO2 emissions" than equivalent technologies and "up to 80% more renewable gas" than anaerobic digestion. In March 2025 the company said tests on model feedstocks had destroyed more than 99.8% of three PFAS compounds, according to its news page. No independent test of these figures could be found.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows

WAS2VAL was pitched as a market launch. The CORDIS objective said the commercialisation of TreaTech's units would bring "€535 million of revenues, €126 million of profits" and 36 new jobs by 2028, with 161,310 tonnes of sewage sludge treated that year and about 22% of the Swiss market. It was TreaTech's second EU grant: in 2018 it had received €50,000 for a four-month SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study, KATEDRAL, according to CORDIS.

The final periodic report, covering February 2022 to March 2024, reframes the goal as "technology validation at a real environment". It reports that the 100 kg/h pilot at PSI completed commissioning with a successful gasification test at 95% carbon conversion, reaching technology readiness level 6; that a transportable 200 kg/h demonstration unit called VISTA had been designed and was "under construction", to be installed at a partner site in summer 2024 to reach level 7; that more than 42 waste samples from 20 clients had been tested; and that a patent for a new reactor design was filed in 2023. North Data lists a TreaTech patent publication, "System for treating aqueous wastewater", in November 2024, according to North Data. The report expected industrialisation and commercialisation "in 2025" and 15 industrial units worldwide by 2030.

The demonstration unit came after the project ended, and sources disagree on when. TreaTech announced on 1 July 2024 that VISTA would be installed at the Ecorecyclage waste site in Lavigny, owned by its investor Holdigaz, in the third quarter of 2024, according to Startupticker. Montrose said on 20 August 2024 that the unit had been installed, according to its release on Stock Titan. The valve supplier Swagelok says installation was completed "by the end of January 2025", and the ATEE overview dates commissioning to February 2025. EPFL's 2025 profile says the unit "was set up in 2023". In June 2025 the company said the pilot had run about 500 hours against a target of 1,000. Whether it reached 1,000 hours, or ran continuously, has not been announced.

1. Validate the pilot at PSI (TRL 6)DeliveredGasification test at 95% carbon conversion, per the CORDIS report.
2. Demo unit at a customer site (TRL 7)PartlyStill under construction at project end; installed in Lavigny by early 2025; about 500 hours by June 2025.
3. Longer catalyst life, new reactor patentDeliveredLab-scale gains self-reported; patent filed 2023, published 2024.
4. Commercial units sold from 2025Not achievedNo sale or customer contract announced by October 2026.
5. 161,310 tonnes of sludge and €535M revenue by 2028Off trackOne demo unit of 200 kg/h; no revenue figures public.

The Money and the Owners

TreaTech's funding history is a mix of Swiss public money and corporate venture capital. It started with CHF 400,000 from private investors, according to EPFL. The PSI pilot was a public-private project with the Swiss Federal Office of Energy: the company's news page puts it at CHF 4.4 million, while EPFL says CHF 4 million was raised. The Series A brought total funds raised since founding to CHF 15 million, the company said in its announcement. ENGIE's article gives the round as €9 million rather than CHF 9 million; the register and the company give francs.

Because the company converted from a Sàrl into a public limited company in July 2023, the register published both its cap table and the conversion balance sheet. On 29 June 2023 TreaTech had assets of CHF 9,846,246.82 and liabilities to third parties of CHF 1,806,922.59, according to the gazette entry on Zefix. The preferred shares were split between six corporate and institutional investors and six smaller holders, with the EIC Fund holding the largest block. Juillard held 166,000 of the 227,000 common shares.

Annual revenue, losses and the 2026 round's size are not public: no annual accounts of TreaTech are published in the register, which shows only that an auditor, Doxior Cabinet fiduciaire SA, was appointed in August 2024.

Why It Matters for Europe

TreaTech sits where three EU policies meet. The Commission's REPowerEU plan of May 2022 calls for "boosting sustainable biomethane production to 35 bcm by 2030", according to the communication on EUR-Lex, and waste streams that are now burned or landfilled are an obvious feedstock. The revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive requires treatment plants to become energy-neutral by 2045 and to remove micropollutants, according to the European Commission. A process that makes grid gas from sludge and recovers phosphorus would serve both goals, and French gas grid operator GRTgaz has published white papers naming the technology, according to TreaTech's news page.

The company's investors are largely European: ENGIE and CMA CGM from France, Sipchem's European arm and the Swiss utility group Holdigaz, alongside the US firm Montrose.

The Verdict

TreaTech and the EIC were not asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.