Growth Company of the Year bringing clean drinking water across the globe

Wayout International was founded four years ago by a group of engineers and business leaders, who wanted to produce systems for locally produced beverages. The Swedish startups’ original goal was to eliminate long distance transportation of drinks like brews and soft drinks. Now, that plan has evolved.

“We’ve really honed in on the potential in bringing locally produced water to the world,” Wayout Chief Financial Officer and Partner Martin Sjöström said.

Sjöström says the company is working on rolling out their drinking water system to regions of the globe where clean drinking water is harder for people to access. Wayout is hoping to deliver water to nearly three million people within the next few years through their systems.

The World Health Organization says that 26 percent of the global population doesn’t have access to a safely managed drinking-water service; where water is available when needed and free from contamination.

Turning any source water into perfect drinking water

Wayout offers a micro-factory for perfect drinking water. The company says a single system can provide 2,000 people with clean water every day. The system helps eliminate long distance transport of plastic bottled water, and has a minimal ecological footprint.

“What we’re hoping to achieve is a change in behavior, to quote ourselves, a ‘way out’ of drinking plastic bottled water,” Sjöström said.

The company already has a handful of units in Eastern Africa for research and development. It includes a unit at a camp in the Serengeti, and in Nairobi.

“Much like prehistoric man, we’re migrating across the Arabian peninsula toward India and Sri Lanka, the island nations of the Indian Ocean,” Sjöström said. “That’s our commercial domain focus.”

Each of those units can be analyzed and optimized digitally from Wayout’s smartphone app.

Wayout hopes to put 600 units into the field within the next two to three years. The company says each system is capable of eliminating 6.5 million plastic bottles of water each year.

“On a global perspective, it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Sjöström said. “We’ve not yet scratched the surface of potential that we can bring, also the potential that humanity needs to eliminate this use of plastic.”

Wayout won “Growth Company of the Year” during Techarenan Challenge 2022 at Almedalen this month.