Contact: Sarah Seagraves
i2E Vice President for Marketing
(405) 813-2403 or email sseagraves@i2E.org
i2E, Inc., has closed a $450,000 investment in Stillwater-based Associated Material Processing, LLC. through its StartOK Accelerator Fund. The i2E investment led a $1.135 million financing round that also included the i2E-managed SeedStep Angels, Cowboy Technologies and other angel investors.
Associated Material Processing (AMP) has exclusively licensed technology from Oklahoma State University to a patent-pending sorbent material that removes arsenic from industrial and manufacturing waste streams and drinking water. AMP will use the proceeds to increase sales and marketing, to acquire initial inventory and to enhance pilot plant equipment.
“We consider this investment round to be critical in moving our arsenic removal technology from a chemistry laboratory at OSU into the real, commercial world,” said David Waits, AMP’s Chief Executive Officer. “We now have an opportunity to positively impact many people’s lives including creating new jobs in Stillwater. We are very thankful for i2E’s investment as well as their role in leading various angel investors to fund this amazing innovation.”
AMP’s initial market is the silicon chip manufacturing industry, which uses a process that results in large amounts of arsenic as a waste byproduct.
The StartOK Accelerator Fund is one of three Accelerate Oklahoma! investment vehicles created in 2011 by i2E through a partnership with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and the U.S. Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative.
The StartOK Fund targets companies that are in the startup stage that have not yet completed a product launch.
The SeedStep Angels were founded by i2E in 2009 and is now the state’s largest angel investment group with 27 members and chapters in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Ardmore. Investments by SeedStep Angels members now total more than $2 million since the group was founded.
About Associated Material Processing: Founded in 2011, AMP is working to commercialize a sorbent chemical polymer developed in the laboratory of Oklahoma State University chemistry professor Allen Apblett, Ph.D. The technology has been shown to remove arsenic from various industrial waste water streams, drinking water, consumer beverages and land water runoff.
About i2E, Inc.: With offices in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK, i2E’s nationally recognized services include business expertise and funding for Oklahoma’s emerging small businesses.
