If you live in the Wynwood or Midtown or attended Ultra or an F1 event around town, you may have refilled your water bottle thanks to Miami-based startup HOPE Hydration. You wouldn’t be alone: HOPE has provided about 2 million free refills at high-profile events, airports, stadiums and city centers near and far since 2023.
This startup’s lofty goal: To serve up 10 million refills by the end of this year.
HOPE may just get there, with help from a fresh funding round. Hope announced today it has closed a $20 million Series A, led by Pentair plc, with additional participation from Burnt Island Ventures. The new capital is expected to fuel the company’s growth into additional markets, scale manufacturing, accelerate product innovation, and strengthen strategic partnerships worldwide.
Founded by Jorge Richardson, Cristina Gnecco and Dave Tigue, HOPE Hydration is focused on its mission to reduce single-use plastic waste and promote sustainable hydration. HOPE develops and distributes HydroStations that use filtration technology from Pentair Water Solutions to bring free, high-quality, chilled drinking water to residents and patrons of city centers and commercial spaces.
“People are traveling and enjoying outdoor activities more than ever before, and are also more mindful of the impact they have on the world around them, but public access to water hasn’t kept up,” said Jorge Richardson, HOPE’s CEO. “We built HOPE to fix that. This investment will help enable us to scale a new kind of infrastructure – one that is built for health, for exploration, and for the planet.”
HOPE Hydration was founded in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – not the best time to propose new public water infrastructure. Still, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez showed an immediate interest. “Within 15 minutes of DMing Mayor Suarez on Twitter, he sent me his personal number and told me to text him. We met him for cafecito. The fact that the mayor of Miami isn’t just talking about tech, but in it, we knew there was no better place to build,” Richardson told Refresh Miami earlier this year.
The startup makes money from the big brands that advertise on the stations. All of its HydroStations are able to provide real-time data updates, including the number of refills and the amount of plastic and carbon dioxide saved, as well as monitor water output in real time to support proactive maintenance. Each station is also equipped with 55″ LED screens that display digital ads, which enable the company to install HydroStations at no cost to the venue.
“The best part of our model is that brands already have media budgets,” Richardson said in April. “We’re not asking them to spend more, we’re just giving them a better option. Why not invest in a digital screen that invites people to stop, engage, and walk away with free water?”
Adrian Chiu, EVP and President of Pentair Water Solutions, said the new investment aligns with their mission to help the world sustainably improve water, life’s most essential resource. “We are excited to contribute our filtration technology, expertise and resources to help HOPE accelerate their growth strategy, broaden their impact and ultimately help to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic water bottles.”
HOPE previously raised a $5 million seed round in 2024 and is also backed by Boost VC, Spice Capital, Grayson Allen of the Phoenix Suns, and others.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
Don’t buy that plastic bottle – refill your Stanley instead. This Miami startup is making it easy.
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