This water treatment startup has already achieved unicorn status and has secured $225 million in VC funding.

Businesses are seeking innovative methods to recycle water, as industry uses up to half of the world's water supply.

New companies are discovering innovative methods to recover and reuse water at minimal costs in industries such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, textiles, mining, renewables, and power.

By the end of this decade, the global water and wastewater treatment market is predicted to reach $500 billion, as stated by Statista. Although the current process often involves the use of harsh chemicals and consumes a significant amount of energy, companies such as Xylem, Veolia, and Boston-based startup Gradiant are working to reduce both costs and energy while eliminating chemicals.

Gradiant's co-founder and chief technology officer, Prakash Govindan, stated that the company takes highly contaminated wastewater containing solvents, dissolved salt, and organics, and completely eliminates the entire liquid waste.

Gradiant was established in 2013 as a spinoff from MIT by Anurag Bajpayee and Govindan.

Gradiant's technology replicates nature's process of creating rain by heating and pumping wastewater into a humidifier and mixing it with ambient air. As the two interact, they are heated into vapor, leaving contaminants behind. Using a proprietary technology, the vapor is transferred to a column with cool clean water. When the two mix, the air cools and drops fresh water, like rain falls from a cloud. This process, according to Gradiant, reduces traditional costs by half.

Govindan stated that while other technologies can recover approximately 50 to 60% of water, their method can recover an impressive 99% of water.

Gradiant, a water purification unicorn, boasts an impressive client roster that includes companies such as , BMW, and Adnoc. The company claims to save 1.7 billion gallons of water daily, which is equivalent to the consumption of 48 million people. In the first half of this year, Gradiant closed over $500 million in new orders, indicating its growth trajectory is attractive to investors.

Finding a full end-to-end solution for customers is difficult when scaling technologies, but Gradiant has successfully done so, as stated by Mark Danchak, co-founder at General Innovation Capital Partners, a Gradiant investor.

Gradiant has received $228 million in funding from investors such as Warburg Pincus, M&G Investments, Formation 8, Clearvision Ventures, and GRC.

CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.