Innovators in Action: ECO2MIX

Written by: Peggy Cromwell, Content Writer and Media Specialist Intern

This month, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Waldo Moraga, the founder of ECO2MIX, and I was able to interview him about his path to creating this technology and learned more about how he built ECO2MIX into the business it is today. 

One of the most interesting things about Waldo’s career is that the majority of his career jumps in this field weren’t preplanned. Instead, they were done to suit demand.

Waldo started in irrigation in 1994, specifically working in landscape irrigation. That was only the case for a few months before he switched to small-farm irrigation. There was a government grant in Chile that allowed small farms to install their own irrigation systems, so once Waldo was asked to work on one farm, he realized the greater market potential and pivoted his business to focus on this grant. In 1997, Waldo also started working in hydroponics, building beds and water treatment systems for greenhouses. He even worked in tree greenhouses as well as more traditional small-plant greenhouses.

In 2003, Waldo started working in the fertigation and water pH control market, though at this time, he was still working with the market standard sulfuric acid. Waldo would build the systems that injected fertilizer into the water and add sulfuric acid to bring the pH down to the desired levels. One unique practice that Waldo did was to base the amount of sulfuric acid his system would inject into the water on the pH of the water instead of the soil, which is also built into ECO2MIX’s systems as well. From 2003 to 2015, Waldo installed over 200 water treatment systems with fertigation and sulfuric acid pH control.

Around 2013, Waldo met farmers from Peru who asked if he could do water pH control without sulfuric acid. In Peru, you can’t use sulfuric acid for farming because it is heavily regulated and banned in spots because it is used in cocaine production. Carbonic acid seemed to be the best alternative, but no one was using it in agriculture at the time.

Waldo was not the first to think of using carbonic acid in water pH control; people had been using it since the 50s, but it was only really being sold by the gas company and not in agriculture. The companies that sold Carbon Dioxide (CO2) would sell an injector apparatus that would mix the gas with the water to create carbonic acid, but the systems were highly ineffective and wasted a lot of gas. So, instead of working with existing systems, Waldo decided to create his own highly efficient injection system and so ECO2MIX was born.

Waldo created a concept design and got into the accelerator StartUp Chile, where he was able to get funds to finish the design and develop his business plan. Today, he has the patent on his design in Europe, and pending in the U.S. 

Waldo took his first trip to the U.S. in 2015 to figure out where to base his business. Waldo presented to a couple of colleges, including Fresno State. In 2017, before Waldo moved to California, he already had two pilot carbonic acid systems running in the Central Valley, and he joined our first Valley Ventures cohort. Waldo’s first interaction with the WET Center was in 2016, after he presented his business plan through the WET Center. Since Valley Ventures, he has used our resources and tools to help a business here in the U.S. In 2018, he moved to Fresno and has been growing his business ever since, and this year, they installed their 100th system!

I asked Waldo’s advice on what he would say to new entrepreneurs now, and he said, “You have to know your own business and then find paying customers.” He emphasized that the way to create a successful business is to have customers as soon as you have a viable product, not a perfect product. Go through iterations as you sell rather than wait until it is the best it will ever be. The first ECO2MIX system was far larger, but it worked and treated the water pH, which is the real goal. Waldo has continued to refine his system throughout the last seven years, but he has started working with customers as soon as possible so he can understand their needs. Customer feedback is one of the best ways to improve a product, and he relies on feedback to continue growing and improving.

ECO2MIX is one of the best examples of the kinds of businesses that we hope to assist and the growth we hope for in all of the businesses that come through our doors. If you see yourself and your business goals in Waldo’s story, please look into our Valley Venture program and see if it is right for you.