The EIC Accelerator Backed bNovate's Coliform Sensor: Did It Work

On 29 September 2026 bNovate Technologies launched BactoSense ID, an automated instrument that counts specific bacteria in water in under 60 minutes. The company's press release says it identifies "coliforms, enterococci, and E. coli". An editor's note at the bottom of the same release adds: "The ability to detect and identify E. coli will be available soon." The version reprinted by Water Online on 5 October 2026 lists E. coli without that note.

That footnote matters for the European taxpayer. Seven years earlier, the EU had agreed to pay €1,689,362.50 towards ColiSense Online, a €2,413,375 project to bring "to industrial production stage" an analyser that detects and quantifies E. coli in drinking water in 60 minutes, at €1 per analysis, below the legal limit of 1 cell per 100 ml, according to CORDIS. The project ran from 1 July 2019 to 31 December 2021, and a CORDIS results summary gave 2023 as the target for "marketisation". On the BactoSense ID product page today, the answer to "Does BactoSense ID measure E. coli?" reads: "It quantifies and identifies coliforms and enterococci today, with E. coli following soon."

Where bNovate Stands Now

bNovate is an active company. The Swiss commercial register lists bNovate Technologies SA in Ecublens as active, with share capital of CHF 375,749 and a last entry on 17 December 2025 that recorded a capital change and a new auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, according to Moneyhouse and North Data. The company has used the names bNovate Technologies Sàrl, Ltd and AG before its current form. Swiss companies of this kind do not have to publish their accounts, so revenue, losses and staff numbers could not be verified.

Its business is the BactoSense range: automated flow cytometers that sit on a water line and count bacteria in about 20 minutes instead of waiting days for a laboratory culture. In September 2024 it relaunched the range as three models, BactoSense CORE for drinking water utilities, SMART for food, beverage and industrial water and PURE for pharmaceutical and semiconductor water, plus a cartridge that counts metabolically active cells after UV disinfection, according to Water Online. Those instruments count all bacteria, not a named species. In 2026 bNovate says it has "more than 500 systems deployed globally" and "1,000,000+ automated tests delivered every year", on its product page; no customer list or independent count is public.

Management has changed since the grant. In February 2024 Serge Gander, formerly chief executive of CleanGreens Solutions, took over as CEO from co-founder Simon Kuenzi, who stayed on the board, according to Startupticker. The company's team page lists Luigino Grasso, who coordinated the EU project, as chief technology officer.

How the Technology Works

The legal test for E. coli in drinking water is a culture: a water sample is filtered, the filter is placed on a growth medium and the colonies are counted after incubation, which takes days. The CORDIS project summary puts the delay at "two or more days", by which time "the affected water is likely to have been consumed". bNovate's approach is flow cytometry, which stains cells and passes them one by one past a laser. The company says it was the first to run the method in a fully automated way at industrial scale, in the project's feasibility study report.

Counting all cells was already possible with the first BactoSense. Picking out one species among millions of harmless bacteria is harder. The CORDIS results summary describes a cartridge that concentrates the sample, isolates the bacteria and stains the E. coli cells. For BactoSense ID, bNovate says "specific enzymes inside the target cells turn our reagents into a measurable label", and that the method is aligned with the ISO 9308-1 and ISO 7899-2 reference standards for coliforms, E. coli and enterococci, on its product page. No independent validation study of BactoSense ID could be found. The company itself says the device "complements official testing" and is "not a replacement for regulatory compliance methods".

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

bNovate went through both stages of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument. A four-month Phase 1 feasibility study, from March to June 2018, received €50,000 of a €71,429 budget, according to CORDIS; its report said the team had defined the subsystems, run a freedom-to-operate check and projected that payback would come "at the second year of commercialization". The company was then selected at the 9 January 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the forerunner of the EIC Accelerator, and is listed alone for ColiSense Online in the European Commission's list of selected companies, with no partner company. The grant agreement was signed on 13 June 2019.

The final periodic report, for July 2020 to December 2021, says the subsystems were optimised and integrated into a "stand-alone and autonomous device" with its own control and analysis software, and that "the industrial prototypes were tested in operational environments, paving the way for the deployment of an industrial production line". It reports trade fairs but no customer, no price and no accreditation. The CORDIS results summary, published after the project, said the team was "currently working on industrialising the solution" with marketisation planned "by 2023", and that it also planned to have ColiSense accredited as an alternative technique for E. coli testing.

1. Integrated E. coli analyser, tested in the fieldDeliveredIndustrial prototypes tested in operational environments, per the final report.
2. Specific bacteria counted online in under 60 minutesPartlyBactoSense ID does this for coliforms and enterococci since September 2026, per bNovate.
3. E. coli analyser on the market by 2023Not achievedE. coli still "available soon" in the September 2026 release.
4. Accreditation as an alternative E. coli methodNot achievedThe company says BactoSense ID is not a replacement for regulatory methods.
5. €1 per analysis, 1 cell per 100 mlUnverifiedNo price or detection limit for BactoSense ID is published.
6. Industrial production lineUnverifiedThe report says the prototypes "paved the way"; no production line was announced.

Measured against its own title, "Online and automated E. coli monitoring", the project has not reached the market almost five years after it ended. What did reach the market, in September 2026, is the same species-specific counting principle applied first to coliforms, the wider group of bacteria that includes E. coli, and to enterococci. The rating here is therefore partly delivered: the technology work is documented and visible in a product, the funded E. coli result is not.

The Money Since the Grant

Private investors have backed the company since the project started. In May 2021 bNovate closed a CHF 5 million Series B led by Celeste Management, a Geneva family office, with Ronald Strässler and two other private investors, to expand into North America and Asia-Pacific, according to Startupticker; customers then included "several cities in Europe" and pharmaceutical and food multinationals. In June 2023 it raised CHF 12 million in a Series C led by Emerald Technology Ventures, whose partner Helge Daebel joined the board, according to Emerald and Startupticker. Emerald's release spoke of "hundreds of installations" in 16 European countries. Neither funding announcement mentions E. coli or ColiSense.

The register mirrors the rounds. Nominal share capital rose from CHF 20,000 at registration to CHF 225,298 in April 2021, CHF 326,335 in June 2023, CHF 370,961 in March 2024 and CHF 375,749 in December 2025, according to North Data. What the 2024 and 2025 issues raised is not public. The award was grant only, so no EIC equity was involved, and no investment by the EIC Fund in bNovate could be found.

bNovate has one other EU project on CORDIS: it is an associated partner, with no EU contribution, in ToDrinQ, a €3.99 million Horizon Europe project on drinking water quality that runs from December 2022 to November 2026.

Why It Matters for Europe

The EU's recast Drinking Water Directive, Directive (EU) 2020/2184, entered into force on 12 January 2021 and had to be transposed by 12 January 2023. It moves water suppliers to a risk-based model, with risk assessments of catchment areas due by July 2027 and of supply systems by January 2029, according to the European Commission. Continuous online sensors that flag contamination between lab samples fit that model. The catch is regulatory: compliance testing still relies on culture methods, and bNovate itself markets BactoSense ID as a supplement to them, not a replacement.

The Verdict

bNovate has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.