Hydroquo+

Hydroquo+ is a Dhaka, Bangladesh-based water technology company that combines industrial IoT sensors with data analytics and software to monitor water quality and manage water infrastructure. Its system takes readings from modular sensors, flow meters and analysers measuring parameters such as turbidity, chlorine, pH, pressure, total organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon and free chlorine, and applies machine learning algorithms to forecast water quality from trained datasets. Data and forecasts are held on a cloud server accessible through smartphones, desktops and tablets, producing an automated water quality monitoring system built on machine-to-machine communication.

The company's stated offering spans online water quality sensors, hydrology monitoring, meteorology, data technologies and operational platforms. It describes data unification across IoT sensors, dataloggers, GIS, OPC/PLC, AMR/AMI and CMMS systems, a vendor-agnostic portal for real-time visualisation, trend analysis, alerts and reporting, and custom hydraulic and digital twin models used for risk assessment, asset management and scenario optimisation. Materials cite coverage of 20-30+ parameters including organics, inorganics, nutrients, environmental factors and heavy metals such as mercury, lead and arsenic, with readings described at parts-per-billion level. Application areas listed include pre-treatment, agriculture, manufacturing, pulp and paper, and energy, with use cases across process water, wastewater and surface water, plus asset management and DevOps services.

Published use cases include a city utility deployment with Dhaka WASA, textile effluent discharge monitoring, and a coal-powered plant using the system to monitor and treat effluent discharge for coal-ash remediation compliance.

Founding story

The founders, Zahin Razeen and his sister Rizvana Hredita, built the company out of personal experience with water scarcity and contamination in Bangladesh. Bangladesh and eastern India sit atop the Ganges Delta, where the aquifer contains naturally occurring arsenic, fluoride and other impurities; after independence more than 10 million tube wells were drilled without water testing, and by 2000 roughly 30% of the water was found to be arsenic-contaminated, which the World Health Organization described as the largest mass poisoning in history. Razeen has cited recurring municipal water rationing during his childhood and the view that freshwater scarcity would become a defining global challenge. The pair initially struggled to find interested partners before Dhaka WASA agreed to work with them in 2019.

Business model

Hydroquo+ sells a combination of hardware, software and services under two commercial structures. A CapEx model charges a one-time fee with a year-long warranty, covering training, installation and commissioning, analytics software and firmware upgrades, real-time mobile/web applications with predictive intelligence, and maintenance and replacement parts. An OpEx model uses a multiyear agreement with consumption-based fees, hardware leasing, unlimited licences, a one-time installation fee and perpetual operations and maintenance service. Productised offerings are packaged as Digital Twin as a Service, Platform as a Service and Data as a Service.

Revenue is generated either through one-time equipment and commissioning fees with included software and support (CapEx model) or recurring consumption-based subscription fees combined with hardware leasing and installation charges over multiyear agreements (OpEx model), alongside service-based Digital Twin, Platform and Data as a Service offerings.

Traction

In 2019 the company began working with Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (Dhaka WASA), installing a mechanism to test water quality across 10 pipelines in different areas of the city. As of mid-2021 it had completed two projects in collaboration with Dhaka WASA and the Central Microbiology Laboratory, and reported interest in pilot projects from Chittagong WASA, the Chittagong Port Authority and parties in the MENA region. The company's site reports cumulative impact figures for projects completed, water sampling tests over two years, CO2 saved and data points collected, and publishes case studies for a city utility and textile effluent discharge.

Latest developments

The company's site lists ongoing solution lines across pre-treatment, agriculture, manufacturing, pulp and paper and energy, with published case studies on Dhaka WASA and textile effluent discharge, and a coal-powered plant effluent monitoring case study for coal-ash remediation compliance. Reported research directions include tracing and filtration technology for private water supply and city and regional utilities, and application of the technology to commercial filtration in pharmaceutical and food and beverage processing, as well as effluent treatment and water treatment plants.