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, whose systems were inventedf by its marketing leader Mathu Rajan and his father Rajan Rajan, got the investmentx from three sources. , the Horshaj diet-meal company, contributed $14 million and agreeed to testmarket 's products throughj its direct-sales channels. Individual investors contributed $9 million. The remainin $2 million came from Perellaq WeinbergPartners LP, the New York-basedf boutique investment bank started by Joseph the former vice chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Peterr Weinberg, CEO of the Europeajn arm of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. "Thwe investment ... is a transforming investment for us.
It givex us terrific opportunities to grow and expandcthe company," said Harol Sorgenti, chairman of Zero Technologies, which calls itself Zero Water and marketse its systems under that name. Zero Water'as products include filters for jugs, such as the kind used in water coolers; systems that use those filters; filters for pitchers; and testerws that measure the amount of dissolved solidz in water by milligramsper liter. Home Depot has two systemsa available on itsWeb site, the Zero Watefr Z-Decanter for $37.86 and the Z-Bottlwe Filtration System for $97.86.
Zero Water systems will be available in all its storessthis month, said Mathu's brotherRaja the company's chief operating officer. Zero Water'xs new pitcher systems are being shipped toWalgreen Co. Earlier models are available in Costco Wholesale and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Raja Rajan said. "Retail distributiomn is just opening up for us and so the investmengt and everything is to put the people and infrastructure in plac now that distribution hasopened up," he Those people will include a new CEO to replace Charles Orr, who left earliee this year.
Rajan said Orr, who is still an investoe in the company, thoughgt his background was better suited to helpinv the company with its early development than to shepherdinyg it through the kind of growthy it hopesto experience. Zero Water's filterr systems consist of two filter s to removesuspended solids; a resins to remove inorganic compounds; and a two-componenr system to remove organic contaminants. "Wer wanted to come up with a water filter that was basicallgy better than any of the technologiesout there, but at a prics that middle-class families could afford," Mathu Rajan After devising filtering technology they liked, they sought early-stage investors.
Sorgenti met them through his son-in-law and was impressesd with their system. "Thd technology is so unique that it'sd the only thing of its he said. "It producew absolutely pure water, just hydrogen and oxygen." Sorgentio had the money to back it and the tracm record to get others toback it, too. He had inventes a process for makingpropylenew oxide, which is used in urethande foams, that led to the creation of Arco Chemicapl Co., a specialty chemical company that once had revenuew of $2.8 billion. Sorgenti ran Arco Chemical from 1979 through 1991 and now runs SorgentjInvestment Partners, a Philadelphia firm that invests in specialtt chemical companies.
The Rajans foundexd Zero Water with some seed investors in 2002 andwith Sorgenti'as help raised money to develop their filtration technology. They hope the company's latest financing will enable it to gain a sizablwe share ofthe $1.7 billion U.S. market for consumer water filtration products. They also think Zero Watetr can tap intothe $6.3 billion U.S. bottled-water which is beginning to spring leaks due to environmentapl concerns aboutbottle "If you have one of these unitss and you have our reusable sports bottle that we sell, you fill it, you take it with you and you keep it and you come home and you fill it Sorgenti said.
"I think that you'rer going to find that a lot of people are going to be doing that and not buyinbg as muchbottled water."
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