Luciano Novia has built his career around identifying emerging opportunities before they become mainstream markets. From banking and financial services to healthcare, fitness, and water technology, his focus has consistently been on transforming innovation into scalable businesses. Today, he is a co-founder, and the Chief Strategy Officer of Evodrop AG, a Swiss water-treatment company. That set of credentials is unusual. It is also more relevant than it might look.
The path through three industries
Novia’s early professional work was in insurance and financial services, including portfolio management roles at Credit Suisse, where he served as the sector head of insurance management. He also built and ran the Lionsoul fitness studios in Zurich and Frauenfeld and co-founded a sports doctor’s practice with an integrated rehabilitation and physiotherapy centre. In December 2019, he co-founded Evodrop with Fabio Hüther, the chief technology officer, and Dino Novia, the chief executive, and built out the company’s strategy function. He completed his MBA in 2025.
What makes his profile distinctive is not simply the transition from banking to cleantech, but the ability to combine finance, entrepreneurship, sales, brand building, and strategic partnerships into scalable business models. Across the three sectors, one thread is visible. Banking depends on regulatory exposure and the time horizons of disciplined capital. Fitness and clinical health depend on consumer trust and the gap between marketing claims and measurable outcomes. Water sits at the intersection of both: a regulated category with high consumer skepticism, in which most products have been sold on assertions that are difficult to verify.
The market logic
Evodrop now serves over 30,000 active users across Switzerland, Europe, and the United Kingdom, with more than 7,000 systems installed. Expected revenue for 2026 sits at CHF 14.8 million. The company holds 24 patents and patent applications and has run more than 30 peer-reviewed studies on its own systems, with food-contact and safety certifications underpinning its limescale-inhibitor product line. The strategy reads in banker’s terms. Evodrop has spent six years building a documented case because the alternative model in the category is non-verifiable consumer claims, which carry escalating regulatory risk. The water market, in other words, is moving in the direction Evodrop has already taken. “My work has focused on identifying major market gaps in water treatment, translating technical innovation into scalable business models, and building partnerships that bring advanced technologies into real-world applications,” Novia has said.
Partnership architecture
While Evodrop’s scientific and engineering foundation was built by its research team, Luciano Novia played a central role in transforming these innovations into commercial partnerships, international distribution structures, and investable growth opportunities. International partnerships fall within Novia’s brief. Evodrop’s distribution model relies on regional distributors, equipment manufacturers, and real estate partners; Novia leads negotiations directly. He has been instrumental in shaping the company’s commercial development, international expansion, and strategic positioning, and over the past years has led numerous partnership negotiations, distribution agreements, fundraising discussions, media relations, and international expansion initiatives that have contributed significantly to Evodrop’s growth. Today, he is actively involved in discussions with multinational corporations, strategic investors, OEM partners, distributors, and institutional stakeholders across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. This international business-development role has become a key growth driver for the company, and through it, Novia has helped secure strategic partnerships and position Evodrop for its next phase of international growth. The approach assumes that building-scale water treatment will increasingly be specified at the project level by developers and operators, rather than chosen at the point of consumer purchase.
That assumption is consistent with the direction regulatory disclosure obligations are taking in Europe and the United States. The product portfolio supports the thesis. The company’s filtration line addresses contaminants like short-chain PFAS and TFA that municipal supplies often miss, and its IonSiv MaloX® limescale inhibitor opens the door to building-services specification, since the malic-acid mechanism runs without the salt, electricity, or wastewater that disqualify softening systems in many commercial environments. International recognition followed: Evodrop has taken more than a dozen awards in the past two years.
The next stretch
Behind the operation are twenty full-time staff and a scientific advisory panel of more than twenty researchers, predominantly based in Europe. The board includes Peter Jäggi, an architect by training and the former head of real estate at Swisscanto, whose background aligns closely with the project-level specification thesis. For Novia, the next stretch is execution. The proof points exist. The procurement framing exists. His role is to build the partnerships, distribution infrastructure, and strategic relationships required to turn a Swiss innovation company into a global water technology platform. More on Evodrop’s strategy and product line is available at evodrop.com.
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