PFAS are forever chemicals that do not break down in the natural environment or in the human body. They have also been scientifically linked to a range of health issues. Despite their useful properties including the ability to repel water, Increasingly the allowable levels of PFAS in both drinking water and in wastewater are being regulated.
Puraffinity develops novel adsorbent media that can remove PFAS from water. Uniquely, it allows high throughput with low contact times and selectively removes the PFAS through chemistry, rather than blanket filtering by size.
Jessica Middlemiss is Puraffinity’s Chief Technology Officer, leading the Product Development, Engineering, and Lab teams, which makes up approximately 50% of the business. Between them they develop Pureaffinity’s products as well as supporting with manufacturing scale up and technical sales.
As a relatively new CTO she describes how: “working in a scale-up, there is no spare resource, so I often find myself in fire-fighting, reactive mode.” She recognises that the coaching and mentoring network in the Shott Scale Up Accelerator will offer a valuable, external perspective to find tools and techniques to support strategic thinking.
During the next 12 months, Puraffinity will become a revenue-generating business, will bring a second-generation media to market and will seek to raise a Series B funding round. If all goes to plan, this will also unlock significant growth and scaling within the team. She acknowledges that getting some insights on how to scale a team without disrupting productivity through the “People and Culture” workshop will also be beneficial
Jessica reflects that while she is numerically literate, and has managed large budgets, she would like support with the different approaches to business accounting. Puraffinity will also be completing Series B funding round in 2026, and she would like to gain an understanding of the processes and terminology involved in VC and private equity funding and the Shott Scale Up Accelerator workshop on securing growth capital will be directly relevant.
