2024 Most Disruptive MBA Startups: Coflux Purification, Rice University (Jones)
Industry: Manufacturing, Climate Tech
MBA Founding Student Name(s): Dana Vazquez (Rice MBA ’24). My co-founders are Rice PhD’s – Dr. Alec Ajnsztajn (Rice PhD ’23) and Jeremy Daum (Rice PhD ’25)
Brief Description of Solution: Everyone has forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, in their body. These have harmful impacts like cancer and heart disease, and right now there’s no way to destroy these chemicals. Manufacturers who produce PFAS increase the presence of forever chemicals in the environment in their waste disposal processes. At Coflux, we’ve developed a new technology to reduce the effects of forever chemicals through environmental decontamination. The Coflux reactor will enable large manufacturers who produce PFAS to clean their wastewater — resulting in cleaner, decontaminated water in surrounding communities.
Funding Dollars: $500k in non-dilutive funding, currently raising a pre-seed.
What led you to launch this venture? My entire career has revolved around climate and sustainability – I have always had a passion for helping large organizations solve ESG related issues, ranging from optimizing their governance and ethics programming to remediation support for environmental projects and everything in between. I met Jeremy at a Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) event and heard he was researching a solution to address PFAS. I was immediately hooked on the social, environmental and real-life health impact this potential technology could have. Water is a climate issue and has a deep impact on climate change, biodiversity and human health.
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Our team has been working together for just over a year now, and the fact that we have been awarded over $500k in non-dilutive funding is incredible. It shows the momentum, dedication, and enthusiasm our founding team has for this technology and demonstrates what happens when you’re solving a really big problem in a space that hasn’t had a lot of innovation historically.
