Dutch-based LegionellaDossier bags €4M to prevent spread of legionella

Utrecht-based LegionellaDossier, a company that offers legionella prevention software, risk analysis software, IoT sensors, and digital legionella management services, announced on Wednesday, October 19, that it has raised €4M in funding.

Legionella is the name for a group of bacteria that contains nearly 40 different strains. This type of bacteria can cause acute infections of the respiratory passages and lead to legionellosis. The number of Legionella infections in the Netherlands has been increasing for some time and this will only increase with climate change.

This is where the Dutch company wants to make a difference. LegionellaDossier’s main mission is to guarantee safe drinking water.

The investors

The investment came from Newion, Amsterdam-based seed and early-stage VC firm Volta Ventures, London-based proptech VC firm Concrete Ventures, and an existing investor. 

According to a statement, the investors believe the company fulfils an important social responsibility and will be able to grow and reach new markets.

Mathijs de Wit, Partner at Newion, explains, “The Netherlands is one of the frontrunners when it comes to legionella control. Because of European legislation around legionella, we see a lot of opportunities to expand. LegionellaDossier is already a market leader in the Netherlands and as such is in a great position to do so. The distribution model of the apps is interesting as well: both legionella consultants and facility managers are supported by the software.”

Capital utilisation

LegionellaDossier says that the funds will help the company focus on upscaling its services and expanding to more countries. It will also be able to attract new talent to improve the customer experience and increase the commercial organisation.

LegionellaDossier founder and CEO Gert Oussoren says, “The investment is an important step forward for LegionellaDossier. The partnership with Newion, Volta and Concrete in addition to the existing investor means the company will be able to offer even smoother legionella control to more customers worldwide. LegionellaDossier will be closer to its mission of guaranteeing safe water everywhere with this investment.”

Safe water everywhere

LegionellaDossier originally began as a graduation project. While finishing his engineering degree, Oussoren created a method for automating temperature monitoring. He immediately realised that this method might be applied to make legionella prevention easier: a difficult task for which there was not yet an automated solution.

This was how LegionellaDossier was born. The company began operating in the Netherlands in 2016, and started operations in the UK last year. LegionellaDossier claims it was the first company in the Netherlands to develop specialised apps to perform legionella prevention in buildings.

To prevent legionella spreading, the government has drawn up dedicated rules and regulations.

This means that in every building that has shared water facilities, certain tasks, such as flushing water outlets and measuring temperatures, should be taken to prevent legionella from growing problematically.

Facility managers are responsible for a number of prevention tasks that need to be carried out with varying frequencies. That leads to a lot of admin tasks and paperwork, which is eliminated with the LegionellaDossier apps.