How this hardware startup cut through the guesswork to find product-market fit

When Arielle Torres first began building Pipeline Organics out of the University of Nottingham, she was chasing a radical idea: what if you could turn sugary wastewater — the kind that’s typically left after producing sodas and juices at scale — into clean energy, on site?

Combining expertise in coating chemistry and advanced 3D printing, her team developed enzyme-based fuel cells that could harvest electrons from the organic content in industrial wastewater and generate electricity.

But like many deeptech startups in their earliest days, they were operating in what Torres describes as “guesswork.”

“We had five or six different innovations we could explore on any given week,” she says. “All of them sounded great in the lab, but we didn’t know what actually mattered to our target customers — whether one of these tangents could ultimately lead to a better product or if it might be a distraction.”

That changed when Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), through its East Kilbride facility in Scotland, offered to open up its site and effluent stream to Pipeline Organics.

What followed was a crash course in product-market fit.

A rare early win

For most early-stage hardware startups, the hardest part is getting access. Factory environments are conservative, complex and allergic to risk. But Torres and her team managed to get in unusually early — and it all started with a series of speculative conversations in late 2022, when they had little more than lab data to prove their technology worked.

Soon, CCEP was sending wastewater samples to Pipeline’s lab in Nottingham, allowing the team to analyse feedstock content and model energy outputs. That early collaboration laid the groundwork for a deeper relationship, culminating in CCEP Ventures leading Pipeline’s £1.5 million pre-seed round, announced last year.

Crucially, CCEP brought in its operational teams from the start, avoiding the disconnect that often occurs between venture and frontline staff. That practical input also helped Pipeline uncover customer needs they hadn’t anticipated, but that turned out to be widespread across the sector.

“Being on-site meant we could see exactly what their pain points were, and that shaped how we prioritised development in the lab,” Torres says.

“We realised the value wasn’t just in the electricity. It was in giving the customer data — about waste levels, discharge risks and where they might streamline operations.”

The waste problem

Pipeline Organics started with a vision of clean energy from industrial wastewater. Yet, what ended up sticking in conversations with potential customers was often something less glamorous: effluent management.

Sugary waste is a persistent challenge for beverage manufacturers. In some cases, it must be collected in containers and transported to treatment sites, at significant cost.

The team realised that if they could do three things at once — reduce the cost of waste disposal, generate electricity from it and help customers track compliance in real time — the business case for Pipeline would be far more compelling.

The factory test

Access to Coca-Cola’s site data transformed how Pipeline approached development, pushing them to focus only on what mattered most.

In May, the team hit a key milestone: generating electricity from factory wastewater over multiple days, proving that their lab-developed system could survive and function in an industrial setting.

The big unknowns were whether the wastewater would damage or deactivate the enzymes. The test also offered early insights into potential issues like biofouling and environmental safety compliance.

Next, they’ll test scale: can their system maintain performance at larger volumes? Will the enzymes stay stable? Are electrons still transferring efficiently? Can their design overcome common challenges in mass transport?

They also aim to show that the electricity produced on-site can be used to power devices in real time through efficient fuel cell assembly and electrode design.

Torres is the first to admit they’re still early — preparing for a seed round, with scaling and engineering challenges still ahead. But she’s building something rare in deeptech: a tight feedback loop between lab and industry that’s helping her team move fast.