Triangle Business Journal - November 9, 2020
By Lauren Ohnseorge
In a tiny lab in Research Triangle Park, a company founded by a mother-daughter duo has raised more than half a million dollars with a goal to transform the water purification industry.
Securities filings show NALA systems just closed on more than $556,000, cash that, according to CEO Sue Mecham, will drive the production of prototypes - the next big step in what she hopes is a transformational company.
Mecham founded the firm with her mother, a fellow chemist. But the entrepreneurial itch started to matriculate years ago in Virginia. After getting her doctorate at Virginia Tech, Mecham worked in industry for a decade at firms like Acadia Polymers before returning to academia. As the mother of four kids, she knew while working in corporations that she needed something different - a way to control her time.
At Virginia Tech, she witnessed the technology transfer process, how ideas developed at the university could become standalone businesses. She thought, why couldn’t I do that? So she teamed up with a fellow professor, Judy Riffle - Mecham’s mother.
Riffle, like Mecham, was a polymer chemist professor at the university. She had invented new materials that “were really of great interest to the water purification industry.”
“We knew how important that was, the potential for that product,” Mecham said. The membranes that they were developing caught the interest of the NAtional Science Foundation, which funded their early work through a Small Business Innovation Research Grant, helping them to establish their proof of concept. The water purification method uses reverse osmosis - a type of desalination, she explained. IT’s complext next-level science that disrupts an industry which “has been using the same products since the 1980s,” Mecham said.
Current membranes are damaged by the chlorine-based disinfectants in the water. But NALA'‘s materials are chlorine tolerant, she said. And NALA’s process also results in reduced energy usage - meaning the potential for major cost savings and an environment-friendler alternative to the status quo.
Now that the science is proven, her goal is to develop prototypes with the new cash and do actual pilot trials with customers, she said.
Mecham, who moved the company to Research Triangle Park’s First Flight Venture Center when she took on a position at UNC-Chapel Hill, said the five-employee firm has the potential to make a real difference. And she’s excited to do it all with her mother, who moved to RTP shortly after she did.
“It’s great, actually,” she said. “We’re a perfect team becasue we do have similar technical training. She really focuses on the technical aspect of building this product and building the processes we’rre going to use to go on full-scale manufacturing and I can focus on the business.”
And there’s a chance the family tradition could continue. Mecham’s son, Michael, is putting his chemistry degree to use as a laboratory technician at NALA.
As for the latest raise, the firm had been working to secure the capital since late last year. Mecham said the firm was starting to make headway, even securing a date in February to present its pitch to RTP Capital.
“The day before, they canceled because things were strating to get a little crazy with coronavirus,” she said.
From then on, everything was virtual. And a virtual pitch is a different animal, she admitted. “The biggest thing is being able to really form a relationship with people you’ve never actually met in person,” she said. “You’ve go tot do that virtually, give them confidence that you’re transparent and easy to work with… it’s a little more stressful, I think.
The round was led by Good Growth Capital, with participation by RTP Capital and WALE.