A series of new water-soluble photoinitiators (PIs) for UV curing of water-borne systems was synthesized by covalent bonding of carbohydrate residues such as D-glucose, sucrose, maltose, l-amino-D-sorbitol and D-gluconicacid-delta-lactone to the commercially available PI 2-hydroxy-1-[4-(2-hydroxy-ethoxy)phenyl]-2-methylpropan-1-one (Darocur 2959) (1). In addition, new functional derivatives of 1 containing tosyl- or chloride residues as well as primary or secondary amino groups were prepared. Preliminary photocalorimetric tests of the activity demonstrated excellent efficiencies of the PIs in a commercial water-based acrylate formulation exceeding the photoactivity of the reference PI (1) substantially.