In the global mission to solve the water crisis, we’re pleased to announce our continued conviction in Uravu Labs in their seed funding round. We are happy that our co-investors, led by Anicut Capital and rocketship.vc, share our belief in the team and their vision.
Uravu’s machines can provide renewable water extracted from air which can be used for drinking and industrial applications. Having led the pre-seed round last year, we have seen the team progress — building products, expanding the team & the customer funnel and executing pilot projects, all while being frugal and iterating rapidly to optimize the product.
Water — an undervalued resource
For too long, we have taken water for granted. Its importance in the evolution of human life cannot be understated. The earliest civilizations — Indian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and the Chinese thrived around rivers. Wars have been fought and political dynasties have fallen over water disputes. It is the one common truth that binds us all in spite of our differences and diversities.
Today, half the global population faces water insecurity at least one month per year. Climate change is accelerating the water crisis. The World Resources Institute, in their Feb 2022 piece, notes
with just 1.5 degrees C of global warming, an additional 350 million people will experience water scarcity by 2030
Furthermore, as Leah Schleifer explains, — globally, water is seriously undervalued and this has led to misallocation of water, and a lack of investments in infrastructure and new water technologies that use water more efficiently.
While the Earth is termed the ‘blue’ planet just about 3% of the water is freshwater. Ground water makes up about 30% of this freshwater, so effectively <1% of all water on earth. However, groundwater levels are fast decreasing as this figure shows.
The Earth’s atmosphere is a large source of water — holding more than 6 times the amount of water in all of the world’s rivers. The natural hydrological cycle also replenishes the atmospheric water in about ten days.What if we could tap into this source of water and use it to cater to our ever-growing water needs.
The high school-physics to do this is a process called condensation. You can cool water vapour into water, but producing the cooling effect requires energy. This largely means a dependence on electricity, which is, today, mostly coming from a non-renewable source.
Uravu’s technology and its modularity
Uravu is building atmospheric water generators — machines that make use of a desiccant material (the moisture absorbing stuff you find in the packing boxes of electronics, shoes, suitcases etc) which adsorbs water from air. This desiccant is then heated using solar heat (renewable source), thus releasing the adsorbed water in the form of hot water vapour. It is subsequently cooled at room temperature and converted to water.
The result is a machine which uses renewable energy to tap into the water in the atmosphere.
The modular nature of the machine allows for rapid scaling and also for coupling with various renewable energy sources aside from solar.
The beverage industry’s water consumption is HUGE!
One estimate marks the use of water in beverages (including bottled water, juices, soft drinks, and alcohol) at around 1.5 Trillion litres per year. That is enough water to quench the thirst of over a billion people (starling numbers considering that over a fifth of the world population lives in water-scarce areas)
Most beverages are mostly water as David Friedberg explains — The compounds that make up the odour, colour, and flavour of a beverage typically represent just 1% of the total volume of that beverage. Soda and juice: 7% sugar, 92% water, 1% flavour compounds; beer: 94% water, 5% alcohol, 1% flavour compounds; You get the drift. That 1% really makes all the difference. The rest is just water.
This means that the beverage industry, valued at over 2 trillion dollars, is also one of the few industries that sells water as a product, and not just uses it as a consumable. This makes the segment a lucrative opportunity for penetration.
Rooftop, Hospitality and Impact are other sectors that the Uravu team is targeting to make inroads. With smart and green city projects coming up rapidly across the world and enterprises setting stringent targets to go green, the push for sustainable spaces is stronger than ever. Our co-investors in this round bring in significant experience in these spaces in the West, East Asia and North Africa. With their support, Uravu will also enter and expand in these markets.
Looking forward
Dr. Pardeep Garg, Swapnil Shrivastav and the team at Uravu have shown incredible resolve and persistence in a difficult fundraising climate, bringing together a pool of global investors with diverse, but complementary strengths. Their hard work and their capacity to iterate quickly and frugally is integral to the success of a hardware startup.
With this fundraise, the team will continue to scale the technology with larger volume machines and expand footprint across large beverage industries.
We are stoked that Anicut Capital, rocketship.vc, Verso Holdings, Vesta, Venture Catalysts, Echo River Capital and others share our conviction in the Uravu team and vision. We welcome the opportunity to partner and learn from them all, as we join hands with Uravu to make water 100% renewable.
Uravu is hiring. Please write to sakshi@uravulabs.com
For business opportunities and collaborations, please write to pardeep@uravulabs.com
