Portfolio Highlight: Aquagga
At VertueLab, we’re rebuilding the world for today’s climate reality, not the one we wish we had. Our portfolio of entrepreneurs creates solutions rooted in real community needs, supported by expert mentorship, strong network connections, and funding. Since 2007, VertueLab has been a leader in the climate innovation ecosystem, connecting entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and impacted communities to drive climate solutions in the Pacific Northwest.
In this installment of our Portfolio Highlight series, we take a closer look at Aquagga, a participant in the 2024 Cascadia Cleantech Accelerator, a joint accelerator with VertueLab and CleanTech Alliance. Discover how Aquagga is tackling the urgent problem of PFAS contamination in water sources through their groundbreaking Hydrothermal Alkaline Treatment Technology. Keep reading for our interview with COO Chris Woodruff and learn more about their inspiring impact.
Aquagga Leadership
Team
Pictured from left to right: Chris Woodruff, Co-Founder & COO, Dhileep Sivam, CEO, and Brian Pinkard, Co-Founder & CTO
How does your technology approach or innovation address climate challenges facing your community?
Our mission at Aquagga is clear: we develop and deploy PFAS destruction technologies to keep these ‘forever chemicals’ out of people and the planet. PFAS contamination is both a public health and environmental challenge, and our Hydrothermal Alkaline Treatment technology destroys these “forever chemicals” instead of simply moving them from water into landfills, incinerators, or other waste streams. By enabling on-site treatment, Aquagga reduces the need for long-distance transportation and high-emission disposal pathways such as incineration, helping lower associated carbon dioxide emissions while reducing long-term environmental liability. Destroying PFAS reduces the global environmental burden, safeguards public health, and preserves the Earth’s capacity to sustain life—the more PFAS we eliminate, the more lives we help protect.
“VertueLab’s support reinforced that building climate solutions is not just about technical innovation, but also about listening to customers, validating market needs, building partnerships, and executing toward real-world deployment.”
How have communities directly benefited from your solution, and in what ways have their lives changed?
Communities benefit when PFAS-impacted materials are managed responsibly and permanently, rather than stored, shipped, or disposed of in ways that can create future risk. Through projects with public agencies, utilities, and government partners, Aquagga has helped advance safer PFAS treatment options for sources such as Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF), landfill leachate, municipal wastewater, and remediation byproducts. While the work is often behind the scenes, the impact is tangible: communities gain access to better tools for protecting drinking water, reducing long-term cleanup liability, and building confidence that contamination can be addressed at the source.
Aquagga 2025 Metrics
What pivotal experience or insight sparked your entrepreneurial journey, and how did VertueLab help you grow?
Aquagga was born from the realization that PFAS cleanup required more than capture or containment — communities needed a scalable way to actually destroy these “forever chemicals.” Our 2019 participation in the NSF I-Corps program was a pivotal early experience, giving us a structured customer discovery process that exposed the technology gaps, regulatory pressures, and industry pain points around PFAS destruction. Building on that foundation, our participation in the 2024 Cascadia Cleantech Accelerator helped us refine our pitch, sharpen our understanding of product-market fit, and connect with our first paying customer for a lab-based benchtop study.
Thank you for joining us for this installment of our Portfolio Highlights! We hope you’re as inspired by Aquagga’s hydrothermal technology as we are. To dive deeper into their innovative work and impact in creating a cleaner future, visit https://www.aquagga.com.
Stay tuned for more stories of innovators VertueLab has supported in reshaping the future of climate tech across the Pacific Northwest.
To support climate tech entrepreneurs and companies like Aquagga, consider making a tax-deductible donation to VertueLab today.
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