About us

OxEO estimates future changes in water supply and demand within a catchment.

Our vision is for a water secure world by 2030, where water demand is met by sustainable supply.

Our valuation framework enables decisions to be made by stakeholders who — acting collectively — can deliver water security at the catchment level.

What we do

We use various geospatial and in situ methods to estimate changes in water supply and demand within a catchment. With years of expertise in surface water change detection, we’re now working on complementary approaches to understand changes in groundwater.  

Our analysis draws on a growing dataset of water-intensive assets that we curate and make publicly available. We aim to produce granular estimates of water demand for agricultural, industrial, domestic and ecosystem-related requirements.

Our valuation framework

We make a connection between the quantity and quality of water being used to achieve an outcome, and the economic value associated with that outcome. This provides a contextual basis to compare the value of water across different use cases in a catchment.

This framework is experimental and requires iterating, but it will support decision making across activities that ultimately deliver greater resilience and water security.

A commercial and technical founding team

The company’s founders met while working at the University of Oxford. They have over 30 years of technical and commercial experience between them.

OxEO is based in Oxford, which is home to one of the largest interdisciplinary water research hubs in the world.  

Board of directors

Dr Alex Money

Dr Alex Money

Founder and CEO

Formerly a fund manager at Citigroup and Bessemer Trust,  Alex has over 25 years of experience as a financial practitioner, academic and entrepreneur. He is part-time faculty at the University of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and a trustee of the Uptime Catalyst Facility, a charity focused on improved water access. Alex has written widely on water risk, finance and investment in the past ten years.

Dr Lucas Kruitwagen

Dr Lucas Kruitwagen

Co-founder and CTO

Lucas is a machine learning researcher focussed on applications for sustainable finance. He has led machine learning and data analytics teams with the Frontier Development Programme and the University of Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme. He co-founded OxEO with Alex in 2018 and became full-time in 2021 after he completed his PhD at the University of Oxford in computer vision for earth observation applications.

Prof Gordon Clark

Prof Gordon Clark

Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford
Mr Stuart Martin

Mr Stuart Martin

CEO, Satellite Applications Catapult

Supported by

CopAcc
Creative Destruction Lab
UK Space Agency
ESA
Phi Lab
WFP
CGFI
Innovate UK
SBRI

Latest news

Towards a Hydrological Drought Index for anticipatory action against hunger
March 29, 2023

Results from OxEO's collaboration with the ESA Phi-Lab and the World Food Programme as part of the EO & AI for SDGs Innovation Initiative.

Mid-year report card
July 28, 2022

Candid reflections on the year so far

OxEO in 2 minutes
July 11, 2022

Alex and Lucas explain why water stress is such a pressing problem - and what OxEO is doing to address it.