KGAL Industries, a division of the KGAL Group specialising in the industrial scaling and commercialisation of technologies, has agreed a strategic partnership with fluvicon GmbH, a water treatment company from Graz. This collaboration aims to establish industrial water treatment as a service in Europe. As part of this agreement, KGAL Industries has acquired a strategic stake in fluvicon. The collaboration is intended to provide companies with proven technological expertise in capital-intensive industries with the necessary means to scale, from initial industrial deployment to Europe-wide implementation.
The relevance of industrial water treatment is growing, driven by stricter EU regulations and the increased demand for circular water usage. KGAL, active in real asset investments since 1968 and with over EUR 15 billion in assets under management, uses this experience to support technologies intended to achieve industrial scale. KGAL Industries combines capital, structuring expertise, and a long-term approach to bring technological developments to market maturity.
fluvicon was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from Montanuniversität Leoben. The company specialises in a patented forward osmosis process, which differs from conventional reverse osmosis. This technology enables the recovery of clean water from highly contaminated wastewater, for example from industry or food production. The process is characterised by its robustness, minimal fouling, lower energy consumption, and lower costs compared to established treatment methods. fluvicon's many years of development work and its industrially proven plants form the technological basis for the planned scaling by KGAL Industries. The partnership translates fluvicon's proven performance into a reproducible and financeable platform.
The first project within this platform is a plant for the Polish subsidiary of a global food group. This plant is based on a twelve-year water treatment contract and converts wastewater from a fermentation process into pure water that meets EU discharge standards. In addition, a concentrated biological residue is recovered, which is directly returned to the customer's production process. For the customer, investment costs and operational expenditure are eliminated; they receive clean water and resource recovery as a service.
The partnership is designed as a scalable industrial platform. fluvicon provides the technology and plant operation, while KGAL Industries contributes structuring expertise, capital, and access to the KGAL Group's institutional network. A standardised development and financing model for each new plant is intended to enable efficient expansion into sectors such as the food and beverage industry, metal processing, surface treatment, textile industry, and agriculture. The partners plan to expand the platform to an investment volume of over EUR 100 million and to establish industrial water treatment as an institutional infrastructure asset class in the long term. This is based on long-term contracts, the necessity of essential services, and increasingly binding EU regulations for sustainable water management.
Thomas Griessler, founder and CEO of fluvicon, stated that the partnership fundamentally changes fluvicon's offering. Customers no longer acquire plants, but instead obtain clean water, recovered resources, and compliance with regulatory requirements without their own investment costs. With KGAL Industries as a partner, it is possible to implement a successful model across Europe, especially at a time when sustainable water management is gaining importance due to EU regulations.
