Eutrobac: Fighting Nitrogen Pollution in Water

On her first day at Hamilton College, Ellie Sangree told her Environmental Studies professor that she wanted to do research into whether bacteria could fight nitrogen pollution in water.

Fast forward a few years, and Sangree is celebrating her graduation from Hamilton while Eutrobac, the company she created with fellow student Jesse Wexler, is celebrating its Grand Prize win in the New York Business Plan Competition. The prizes--$25,500 in cash and ongoing support from Upstate Capital Association of New York’s ecosystem of innovators—will prove invaluable as the pair move toward commercialization of their product, the NutriFilter™.  The device uses natural processes to turn the nitrogen in water into harmless nitrogen gas in the atmosphere.

The 2024 NYBPC was highly competitive, with more than 340 student teams, representing 58 colleges and universities, in contention.

“We were very impressed by the other finalists,” said Wexler, Chief Operations Officer of Eutrobac. “One had a drug in clinical trials.  Another had $400,000 in revenue last year. Another connects applicants with employers. We beat them all.”

Martin Casstevens, a Hamilton alumni, and former University at Buffalo employee teaching entrepreneurship and assisting startups and mentor to Eutrobac, said that is not surprising.

“This is a great story,” Casstevens said. “These are really talented and motivated students.  They have a long way to go of course, but they’ve done an exceptional job and I’m very proud of them.”

It is rare for a small liberal arts college like Hamilton to take the Grand Prize in the NYBPC. The Oneida County school has no formal resources for burgeoning entrepreneurs, but, starting with the professor she met that first day, Eutrobac Chief Technology Officer Sangree said she always felt supported in a way she thought might have been lacking at a university. All of her research was independently driven, but she had the help of several professors and the facilities management team, with whom she worked in a sustainability job.

 “On the one hand there isn’t an entrepreneurial office or a tech transfer office at Hamilton, but the small school vibe and the small faculty-to-student ratio made it so I could just knock on someone’s door and ask a question,” she said. “It is why I chose Hamilton over some bigger schools. I knew that If I wanted to pursue research I would want to do it in a place that has more resources and attention.”

Sangree has always had a mind for science.  As a young girl, she developed an interest in aquaponics, a controlled ecosystem in which plants and fish grow together.  She became intrigued by the bacteria that turned fish waste into plant food.

“I thought it was really cool that you could turn a waste product into something valuable,” she said. “I began to wonder if these same bacteria could be harnessed for environmental good, particularly for nitrogen pollution.”

Nitrogen pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems facing the country.  It poisons drinking water, disrupts ecosystems, and results in algae blooms which may be toxic. The EPA has made addressing nitrogen pollution a high priority.

By the summer following her freshman year at Hamilton, Sangree had developed the NutriFilter™, and early tests proved promising. It was shortly after that that she met Wexler and partnered with him to start Eutrobac.

“Just like Ellie’s been researching since she was a kid, I’ve been starting businesses since I was a kid,” Wexler said. “I was on the founding team of a tech start-up based in Miami. I’ve figured out over the years how to start a company.”

The new business partners began talking to everyone they could, including a broad network of Hamilton alumni who assisted in various ways, such as connecting them with pro bono assistance in obtaining a patent. Among them was Casstevens.

Casstevens got involved in a startup technology company right out of graduate school and ran it for 18 years before joining the University at Buffalo’s (UB) Technology Transfer program, working with innovators to commercialize technologies. He would hold several posts over 15 years, including serving as executive director of the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program at UB.  He now works as a mentor, angel investor, and manages his family’s philanthropy which, in part, supports Hamilton students.

“I heard these students were exceptional and thought I just may be able to help them in one way or another,” he said.

Wexler said Casstevens has been “super helpful” as an advisor to Eutrobac, sharing his expertise and guiding them through their own experience with the regional I-Corps customer discovery process. He also will serve as their industrial mentor when they take part in the national I-Corp program this fall. One of the goals there is to gain a better understanding of the needs of of customers (the agricultural industry) and how government agencies choose technology to include in future regulations.

Before the fall I-Corps program, Eutrobac will use some of the $25,500 NYPBC prize money to support four pilot studies to demonstrate the efficacy of the NutriFilter™. These include one at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and another, in New Hampshire, with backing from the National Resources Conservation Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, the partners will work with Upstate Capital and its network as it pursues $200,000 in pre-seed capital this year.  Casstevens said an application for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant is also likely.

And if that is not enough, Sangree will be going to the University of California Santa Cruz in the fall, to continue her research as she pursues a PhD in Environmental Science.

Casstevens believes one of the reasons Eutrobac took the Grand Prize is because the partners have done some great work and developed a solid long-term vision for the company.

“I think what they did was look beyond the mere invention of the product and field testing it,” he said. “They had a story for how they were going to raise money in the future, how they were going to develop new technologies and launch different types of products. They had an international strategy. That says ‘We’re not just a pretty-looking train at the station. This thing’s got wheels and it’s got momentum.’”