“I created WeCo to provide dignified toilets for women who need it twice as much as men because of periods and pregnancies. By comparison, none of the dry toilets and urinals meet the women’s needs because they don’t provide water sanitation,” begins her story Cécile Dekeuwer, CEO of WeCo.

Toilets become a factor of gender inequality when there are not enough of them designed for women. WeCo, a 75% women-owned company, aims to reach the Sustainable Development Goal #5 of the United Nations (UN SDG#5) about gender equality.

Besides these gender inequalities, Cécile wanted to create a solution adapted to emerging countries where there is no sewerage and no treatment plants.

This poses a huge risk for sanitary and groundwater pollution because when excrements are stored in septic tanks, this leads to unsafe faecal sludge management and virus propagation, especially tangible during the current COVID-19 crisis.

Personal Leadership

“I’m Cécile Dekeuwer, formerly an international business lawyer, inspired by my life in Asia where the toilet revolution is in order. I became a woman entrepreneur who wanted to radically innovate water flush toilets while addressing climate change and gender equality issues,” explains Ms. Dekeuwer.

Without any technical or scientific background but well aware of the 4.2 billion people who lack access to safe sanitation, she took over the challenge of providing toilets and drinkable water to all. She did it from her faith, motivation, and the willingness to deliver sustainable solutions to everyone, especially women in emerging countries.

What Problem Does WeCo Solve and What Makes It Unique?

WeCo produces innovative public flush ecological toilets. “We designed an innovative and ecological flush toilet with on-site wastewater treatment and a recycling system. The system is self-sufficient thanks to a closed circuit, making the toilets independent of any sewer connection,” proudly says Ms. Dekeuwer.

Here’s how everything works:

1. WeCo’s patented technology transports the effluent (urine, faeces, flushes) to a grinder, then to a sedimentation bioreactor where the faeces sediment thanks to bacteria.
2. Then, a pump propulses the liquids in an electrolysis tank. It generates chlorinated compounds to decolorise the black water and destroy the bacteria. In just 2 hours, this results in clean, treated water.
3. Finally, there is storage for the purified water in a water tank. It can be reused for flushing or other applications such as cleaning or watering plants. The system also has an electronic controller that can be reached remotely to facilitate preventive maintenance.

Thanks to this ground-breaking technology, WeCo’s solution solves the problems of:

• Wasting thousands of litres of water by flushing toilets. WeCo’s public toilets consume only 350 L of water per year, counting 100 daily users, versus 156,000 L of water per year for standard public toilets.
• The lack of autonomous, ecological, and innovative toilets for emerging cities or remote areas without sewers. With its closed circuit, you can easily move the WeCo technology around rural and urban areas with or without connection to the water network.

How Did It All Start?

“The journey started 18 years ago in South Korea when I expatriated as a lawyer. I discovered the high-tech Japanese toilets and found them innovative and high tech but not sustainable and not adapted for women, nor affordable for emerging countries,” explains Cécile.

Later on, she gathered eight other shareholders and entrepreneurs to join the WeCo venture by creating innovative sustainable and autonomous toilets from scratch.

To validate the first product and ensure scalability with the first application, since 2018, WeCo has been cooperating with Alstom, a multinational company, operating in rail transportation which is co-developing the first product variant for train toilets.

“As a start-up company, we are treasuring this cooperation because it leads to higher-quality products, and at the same time securing the first relevant customer.”

Client Success Story

In 2020, the city of Rennes tested a female urinal. In that regard, the company just concluded a deal with the city authorities. Rennes’ experiment showed that female urinals are handy but not adapted to urban environments.

“Our offer corresponds to the need for rapid implementation in an urban space. This purchase allowed the city to test our new technology, and they found it ‘very helpful in terms of sustainable development when dry toilets cannot be installed because they are not adapted to the environment of the area’,” explains Ms. Dekeuwer.

Biggest Achievements

In five years, WeCo managed to raise €870,000 in equity and around €1 million in grants. After gaining expertise from R&D cooperation with the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), WeCo filed for two patents, including an EU patent for wastewater treatment.

“Our company has won innovation awards in Europe and China, including the French Sustainable Cities grant of €800,000, the SME Instrument Phase 1, and the Seal of Excellence at the last EIC Accelerator organised by the European Commission,” shares Cécile.

In 2021, the start-up was selected to be part of the Masschallenge Switzerland accelerator, hatched by the incubator of HEC Paris. It also won the Sustainable Cities Initiative Competition (CIVD) of Bpifrance and the Abidjan Sustainable City Club in Côte d'Ivoire. The latter gave the company more business opportunities and visibility in Africa.

These recent events will greatly help WeCo with its development and online visibility, as well as various business opportunities around the world.

Throughout its history, the company has won many awards and prizes that helped it with its development. All these awards have contributed to its visibility, winning more partners, and gaining credibility towards its actual and future customers.

“But apart from all these awards, I should admit that our biggest achievement to date is the installation of our toilets in the poor urban area in the Paris suburb of Grigny. There, the people adopt our toilets, respect them, and are as proud as we are to have such an innovative and ecological product for their market in their suburb that is usually considered as one of France’s poorest,” proudly mentions Cécile Dekeuwer.

Relation with InvestHorizon

“InvestHorizon has been very helpful as our technology is capital-demanding. That’s because it requires lots of R&D, certifications, and industrial investments to scale. In addition, since we will be providing our technologies to major industrial and public clients, we have to provide reliable products and high-level professional services,” says Cécile Dekeuwer.

Moreover, to reach the emerging countries’ market, WeCo needs to industrialise and scale its products to make them affordable, including investing in local patents, commercialisation, and incorporation costs.

“Equity enables us to scale in Europe and in emerging countries that are complicated in terms of human resources, and costly, knowing it’s difficult to find bank support for these countries,” concludes Ms. Dekeuwer.