Clinton, N.Y. – It’s not every day that students from a liberal arts college in upstate New York give birth to a technology that can change an industry. Ellie Sangree and Jesse Wexler, 2024 Hamilton College graduates, developed a product and built a company with the support of the college and the Upstate New York’s startup accelerator ecosystem. Now, they have sold their company to a waste management consulting firm that addresses the needs of livestock producers in North Carolina and the Midwest, Agriment Services, Inc (ASI).
Hamilton alumna Sangree arrived at Hamilton determined to find a way to remove nitrogen pollution from bodies of water, diminishing its effect on water systems nationwide. With the help of professors, science technicians, and facilities management staff on campus, she achieved her goal.
When she invented the NutriFilterTM in 2022, one of the first people she told was her friend and classmate, Wexler. Since then, Sangree and Wexler teamed up and combined their respective science and business acumen to revolutionize the future of clean water. While still at Hamilton they earned the grand prize, out of 340 student teams, and $27,500 in prize money at the 2024 New York Business Plan Competition (NYBPC) for their company, Eutrobac LLC.
The story behind the deal is as much about upstate New York as it is about the founders. Hamilton’s support combined with winning the NYBPC, Cornell’s I-Corps program, engineering capstones at Syracuse University and RIT, and manufacturing partnerships at Rev, the region’s innovation infrastructure was there at every turn. FuzeHub’s investment and the NYS Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture helped fund and coordinate the field experiments that ultimately proved the NutriFilter™ concept to buyers. Hamilton College alumni attorneys and Syracuse’s Innovation Law Center (ILC) gave Eutrobac patent support.
“None of this happens without Upstate New York,” said Ellie Sangree, Eutrobac’s CEO. “The legal support, the university partnerships, the accelerators, the mentors — every single one of them moved the needle.”
“As part of the acquisition, Eutrobac’s co-founders will assume new roles within ASI,” according to ASI’s media release. “Ellie Sangree will join the company on a consulting basis, supporting the continued development and deployment of Eutrobac’s technologies. Jesse Wexler will join ASI full time as Vice President of Sales and Marketing.”
According to Sangree and Wexler, nitrogen pollutes more than 50% of the water in the U.S. When nitrogen reaches bodies of water like lakes and ponds, it has dire effects through a process called eutrophication, which involves nutrients accumulating in a body of water, causing increased growth of microorganisms – such as algal blooms – that deplete the water of oxygen.
“[Eutrophication] contaminates drinking water, ruins ecosystems, and spoils recreational water for swimmers,” Wexler explains. According to the National Institutes of Health, too much nitrogen in drinking water can cause cancer, congenital disabilities, or other adverse health effects both in humans and livestock..
###
