Anurag Bajpayee’s Gradiant: Engineering the Future of Industrial Water

When Anurag Bajpayee co-founded Gradiant in 2013, he was less interested in start-up fanfare than in thermodynamics. The MIT-trained engineer had spent years researching ways to treat industrial wastewater more efficiently. Today, Bajpayee leads one of the world’s fastest-growing water technology firms, with operations in over 90 countries and a mission to address one of the 21st century’s most overlooked infrastructure crises: industrial water scarcity.

Based in Boston, Gradiant builds and operates advanced water treatment systems for industries ranging from semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to food, energy and chemicals. It is a rare success story in a sector long defined by fragmented service providers, slow innovation, and constrained regulation. Its rise reflects the growing importance of water as a strategic resource—and the willingness of governments and multinationals to pay to use less of it.

Flow Control

Gradiant’s core proposition is deceptively simple: help companies reuse water they already have, rather than extract more from increasingly scarce freshwater sources. In practice, that means building bespoke treatment systems—modular, AI-powered, and chemistries-specific—that allow manufacturers to recycle up to 98% of their wastewater. For high-volume sectors like semiconductors, which require ultrapure water for chip fabrication, this reduces both environmental risk and cost.

At the heart of Gradiant’s success is its technology stack. Its portfolio includes Carrier Gas Extraction (CGE), which mimics atmospheric water cycles to desalinate saline or polluted water using low-grade thermal energy; Counterflow Reverse Osmosis (CFRO), which enables near-zero liquid discharge; and Selective Contaminant Extraction (SCE), which isolates specific chemicals—such as lithium, metals, or PFAS—from industrial waste streams. These are integrated by SmartOps, a proprietary AI engine that manages system efficiency in real time.

The company also offers Water-as-a-Service (WaaS), a model in which clients outsource their entire water operations to Gradiant, paying only for clean water delivered or pollutants removed. For many, it eliminates the need for capital expenditure and brings regulatory peace of mind.

A Scarcity Business

Water treatment is often thought of as a municipal function. But industrial use accounts for roughly 19% of global freshwater withdrawals—more than double that in some advanced economies. While municipal utilities have slowly expanded their use of desalination and reuse systems, industry is driving the fastest growth in the water-tech sector. Between 2020 and 2024, global industrial demand for advanced water treatment grew by 8–10% annually, with Asia-Pacific and the Gulf States leading the charge.

Much of this is being driven by supply chain shifts and climate volatility. Companies are building new factories in regions already experiencing water stress. Governments are tightening discharge rules and pricing water more aggressively. Meanwhile, water-intensive growth sectors—green hydrogen, electric vehicle batteries, data centers—are scrambling to decouple expansion from consumption.

Gradiant finds itself in the middle of this storm, and it is thriving. According to the company, its technology has been deployed in over 3,000 installations globally. Its clients include some of the world’s most water-sensitive businesses: chip manufacturers in Singapore, pharmaceutical giants in India, and chemical firms in Texas. In 2023, the company secured $225 million in Series D funding, pushing its valuation above $1 billion.

Engineering Meets Execution

Anurag Bajpayee’s path to the executive suite is unusual. Rather than emerging from finance or management consulting, he built Gradiant directly from his doctoral research at MIT. His early work on CGE was motivated by a simple idea: if nature recycles water through evaporation and condensation, why shouldn’t engineers do the same, only faster and with more control?

Together with co-founder Prakash Govindan, Bajpayee spent years refining technologies that could function in harsh industrial environments, handle complex chemistries, and run economically. From its start in oilfield water recycling in Texas, Gradiant quickly expanded to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, regions where industrial water reuse is both economically rational and politically expedient.

The company’s reputation for execution—delivering systems on time, on budget, and adaptable to local regulations—has distinguished it in a crowded field. Gradiant now operates with regional hubs in Singapore, Dubai, and Houston, and has plans to expand its manufacturing footprint to support accelerated deployment of newer systems, including its latest innovation: ForeverGone, a PFAS-destruction platform.

The Forever Chemical Fix

Earlier this year, Gradiant won a Gold Edison Award for ForeverGone, its new solution to the problem of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—also known as “forever chemicals.” Found in everything from non-stick pans to fire suppression foams, PFAS are resistant to degradation and accumulate in water, soil, and the human body. In March 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its first-ever national standards for PFAS in drinking water, creating a regulatory scramble for utilities and industrial polluters alike.

Most existing PFAS treatment systems either filter the chemicals—creating toxic concentrate—or incinerate them at high cost. ForeverGone offers something different: field-deployable systems that break PFAS down into inert components at the point of treatment, minimizing waste and transport costs. It’s already in use in semiconductor and chemical facilities, and Gradiant is negotiating partnerships with public utilities, airports, and defense sites.

Anurag Bajpayee sees ForeverGone not as a product but as a template: high-impact, regulation-ready, and scalable. For him, PFAS is a symptom, with the broader challenge being industrial water pollution.

Thirst for Investment

Water technology, despite its obvious necessity, has historically struggled to attract the kind of attention lavished on energy or transport. Part of the issue is its fragmented market. Part of it is a chronic undervaluing of water itself. But this may be changing.

In recent years, Gradiant has benefited from a shift in institutional capital toward climate resilience. Its investors see water security as essential to infrastructure, public health, and geopolitical stability. With growing risk around water rights, drought, and compliance, the water-as-a-service model is increasingly attractive to both industrial firms and municipalities.

Gradiant’s business model is also benefiting from the global diversification of supply chains. As multinationals look to expand in water-stressed regions, the ability to “close the loop” on industrial water becomes essential. Some are even requiring their suppliers to certify water reuse and discharge practices—something Gradiant’s systems are designed to monitor and report automatically.

Out of the Shadows?

Despite its scale and success, Gradiant remains relatively low-profile. Its competitors include both legacy firms like Veolia and Suez and newer players focused on niche markets. What sets Gradiant apart is its full-stack model: from R&D and engineering to manufacturing and operations. It owns the entire vertical. That means tighter integration—but also more responsibility.

Whether it can sustain its pace of growth remains to be seen. Water markets are notoriously slow-moving, and government procurement can be cumbersome. But for now, the company appears to have found the right equation: deep technical expertise, strong project delivery, and timing that aligns with both environmental urgency and regulatory momentum.

The Long Game

Gradiant is not alone in betting on water as the defining challenge of the next century. But it is among the few firms turning that bet into deployed infrastructure. With PFAS regulation in full swing, climate volatility accelerating, and industrial water demand rising, the company’s prospects look strong.

Its founder remains focused on fundamentals. According to Gradiant, Water isn’t just a sustainability issue, but a production issue. An economics issue. A security issue. If you can solve water, you can enable everything else.

In an age of scarcity, that may prove the most scalable innovation of all.