A Coatesville, PA tech innovation is headed for competition on a global stage. Susan Springsteen, CEO and Co-Founder of Coatesville-based H2O Connected, impressed the judges in this year’s TiE Women Pitch competition led by TiE Philadelphia & TiE Pittsburgh. Her pitch about the company’s innovative LeakAlertor® won her an all-expense paid trip to Bangalore, India to compete at the 2024 Global TiE Women Pitch Summit, where finalists from as many as 14 nations and 41 chapters will compete for up to $50,000 in prize money. leakalertorpro.com
The TiE pitch competition is designed to spotlight women entrepreneurs who are equal or majority stakeholders, by providing support that includes mentoring, access to funding, resources and scalable solutions through all stages, from start-up to commercial success.
TiE Philadelphia serves the entrepreneur community in the Greater Philly area. This is the first time that Philadelphia will send a representative to compete in the global pitch event. Springsteen was selected from 48 applicants. Her win landed her a spot at the TiE Women Global Entrepreneurial Pitch Summit, December 9 -11, 2024.
Springsteen and her H2O Connected team revolutionized the water-management industry with the introduction of LeakAlertor, a patented in-tank monitoring system featuring proprietary sensor technology to detect, alert, diagnose, and quantify water waste in tank toilets. Springsteen revealed that, on average, based on 6-million data sets, over 50% of toilets have at least one water-wasting issue, with a running toilet wasting as much as 7000 gallons in a single day. H2O Connected serves property managers, the hospitality industry, and homeowners throughout the United States.
“I am honored to represent the Philadelphia region in this global competition,” says Springsteen. “My team and I are very proud of developing an innovative technology that solves a massive global financial and humanitarian problem with an easy-to-use, reliable, and now proven, solution. We are truly a triple-bottom-line company, and I am thrilled for the opportunity to showcase, on the world stage, what we have created.”
“This is the first time we participated in this global event, and the quality of the companies we saw convinced us that it would be a flagship event for us at TiE Philadelphia,” said Doc Parghi, the President of TiE Philadelphia. “The competition was intense and the quality of women entrepreneurs who participated was exceptional. Susan stole the show with her clarity and commitment.”
“I am excited to chair the Women’s Pitch Competition and make it an annual event,” said Sushma Rajagopalan, Chair TiE Women’s Initiatives. “Our focus is on generating and nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs. We believe we can empower individuals to succeed, which leads to creating wealth in communities.”
This latest recognition comes on the heels of several recent accolades for LeakAlertor’s innovative technology. In July, HITEC, the world’s largest technology conference for the hotel industry, invited H2O Connected, as one of eight emerging technology companies, to showcase innovative solutions for the hotel industry during the E2OX Startup Pitch Competition, where they captured the coveted People’s Choice Award. In October, H2O Connected’s LeakAlertor Wireless PRO won the TechOvation Product Pitch Competition at The American Hotel & Lodging Hospitality Show, an honor given to the most innovative and impactful new product in the hospitality industry. H2O Connected also won the Experienced Startup Division of the LionCage Investor Pitch Competition presented by Ideas x Innovation Network (i2n) and Penn State Great Valley in November.
About TiE: The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals with roots in the Indus region. TiE has more than 15,000 members in 61 chapters across 14 countries, who support its mission to foster entrepreneurship globally through mentoring, networking, education, incubating and funding. TiE Philadelphia is a chapter within TiE Global, focused on the development of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystem of Philadelphia. Philadelphia.tie.org
About H2O Connected: Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Coatesville, PA, H2O Connected develops, manufactures, and distributes multi-patented devices and systems that detect, alert, diagnose and quantify nearly every type of water loss problem that can occur with a tank toilet, so that property owners can save water and money. The company’s wireless products, the LeakAlertor® Pro, detect and pinpoint water-wasting problems, provide water usage analytics, and damage protection for tank-based toilets. More information is available at leakalertorpro.com.