In 1962, Hardie Sheppard provided the company with $150,000, its first external financing raise.[3]
In 1961, Dow Chemical requested Waters to design a refractometer. Dow had designed a method of analyzing polymers using gel columns. Waters negotiated an exclusive license to the patent, paying $10,000 plus a 10% royalty.[3]
In 1965, interest surged after Waters sponsored a symposium where scientists presented the results of using Waters equipment.[3]
In 1966, Dow converted its royalty receivable into equity in Waters.[3]
In 1967, the company introduced the ALC 100, the first Waters LC system. It was a benchtop system equipped with a Milton Roy pump, syringe injection, and two detectors: a Waters differential refractometer and a UV detector from Laboratory Data Control.[3]
In 1969, Dimitri D’Arbeloff, then president of Millipore Corporation, joined the board of directors. Millipore's venture capital subsidiary made a $600,000 equity investment in Waters and provided the company with marketing expertise.[3]
By 1972, Dow Chemical had invested $700,000 in the company and owned a 20% stake.[5]
In 1972, Helmut Hamberger, chief post-doc for Nobel laureate Robert Burns Woodward of Harvard University, sought Jim Waters’ help to the first synthesis of vitamin B12. Dr. Hamberger wanted to purify the positional isomers, which were needed to give him the right compound for the final stages of the synthesis. Working with Dr. Hamberger, the pair took two days to develop a separation, five more days to obtain larger columns to scale up the separation, and three more days to prep his material, successfully isolating and purifying 200mg of the precursor compound.[2][3]
In 1972, Waters Associates appointed Frank Zenie president.[3] A year later, it moved its headquarters from Framingham to a semi-rural 26-acre (110,000m2) site in Milford, Massachusetts.[3] Waters became chairman.[3]
From 1972 to 1977, sales grew at a 40% compound annual growth rate.[3] The company introduced its M6000 pump, the first high-pressure, high-accuracy pumping system, which won an award from Industrial Research Magazine.[3] In 1973, the company became a public company via an initial public offering on the predecessor to the Nasdaq.[3]
By 1978, Waters had a 40% market share in liquid chromatography and was five times bigger than any competitor.[3]
By 1979, Dow owned almost 25% of the company.[3] At that time, the company had 1,100 employees and over 10,000 customers.[3]
In May 1980, Millipore acquired the company for $167 million and the company was referred to as the Waters Chromatography Division of Millipore.[3] Due to competition, the early 1980s recession, the early 1990s recession, and lost focus, the company's growth stalled in the 1980s and early 1990s.[3] D’Arbeloff, the chairman of the company, died of cancer and the COO and CTO died in a helicopter crash while commuting between facilities.[3] The anticipated synergies never materialized.[3]
In 1994, an investor group led by management purchased the company for $360 million.[3] That year, the company introduced Symmetry HPLC columns.[3] It had a renewed focus for growth under CEO Douglas A. Berthiaume.[3] Pharmaceutical spending also increased after the failure of the Clinton health care plan of 1993.[3]
In 1996, the company acquired TA Instruments.[3] It also introduced the Alliance HPLC system.[3]
In 1997, Waters acquired Micromass for $176 million, entering the mass spectrometry market.[3]
In 2004, the company introduced the Acquity UPLC system, which brought greater speed, resolution, and sensitivity to chromatographic separations and was considered a breakthrough technology.[3]
In 2006, Waters acquired Vicam, provider of bio-separation and rapid detection products for improving food safety and quality.[7]
In January 2020, Waters acquired Andrew Alliance, a producer of software and robotics for laboratory automation, for $77.4 million.[8]
In September 2020, Udit Batra was named President and Chief Executive Officer of the company.[9]
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US$2.958 billion (2024)
US$638 million (2024)