Here’s How Uravu Labs Is Conjuring Drinking Water Out Of Thin Air

Back in the early 1900s, Alexander Graham Bell, the father of the telephone, used to experiment with devices that would allow him to harvest water from the atmosphere. While nothing concrete materialised back then, precisely a century later, a small Indian startup can be seen making water out of air. 

Yes, you read it right, Air!

Founded in 2019, the origin story of Bengaluru-based Uravu Labs, a watertech startup, harks back to 2016 when its cofounders Swapnil Shrivastav and Venkatesh RY were studying at NIT Calicut, one of India’s premier engineering institutes.

Shrivastav told Inc42 that a drought-like situation at their college in 2016 stirred them to become serious about the challenge of water scarcity in the country and do something sustainable for the long term in this direction. 

“Well, necessity is the mother of all inventions. We realised this when a drought hit our campus for more than a month and we were rationed with no more than 10 to 15 litres (a bucket) of water a day, and sometimes no water at all,” the cofounders said.

The month-long situation was enough for the duo to understand the pain of being water-stressed, who then sat down to find a sustainable solution that could nib the country’s one of the biggest problems in the bud for the years to come. 

“We were fortunate to understand, early on in our lives, what water scarcity actually looks like to a lot of people across the globe. We could relate so well; however, we couldn’t do much but feel helpless about the situation. It was then we decided to change the lives of many who are in the similar situation that we once were,” Shrivastav said.

Water scarcity is a major problem in the country. The problem is especially dire in rural hinterlands and deserts as more than 16.3 Cr Indians lack access to clean drinking water. In many cases, women have to walk many miles to just fetch a pail of water.

The duo then sat down to research the best possible way to resolve the challenge which they had personally experienced. 

Even though water started flowing from the taps in the campus after more than a month, their souls remained parched, giving birth to the idea of Uravu Labs — a startup that one day will serve India’s water needs.

Swimming Against The Waves

After months of research, they stumbled upon the idea of building a technology that would conjure water out of thin air. Although this technology was being developed in other countries as well, such as the US and Israel, they realised there was a lot of input cost involved to fetch just a few litres of water.

Essentially, a lot of these foreign players were using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), comprising expensive nanoparticles, equipment, and high-tech labs, to make water from moisture present in the air. 

Priced north of a couple of thousands of dollars for a single metric tonne, MOFs are crystalline materials well known for their stability and adsorptive properties, and as such find their usage especially in atmospheric water generators (AWGs).

“However, this was never the option for us. And we headed out to find our own means – the ones that are not only cost-effective but also sustainable in the long run. Therefore, we toiled hard to find the right technology that a country like India could afford and is also scalable,” said Shrivastav. 

The cofounders scrounged whatever they could at their engineering college — be it components from air conditioners or car radiators — to build a crude prototype to test the idea. By the time the product reached its MVP phase, the two had graduated but were falling miserably to find takers for their half-baked effort.

But, as luck would have, a chance competition nearly two years later changed their fortunes forever. In between, the team had improved on the initial design and the prototype was now powered by a solar thermal module with silica gel acting as a desiccant (materials that have a high affinity for water vapours).

Around this time, the Tata Group-backed Water Abundance XPRIZE challenged teams from across the globe to build a device that could extract moisture from air using renewable energy in less than two cents (INR 1.3 as per 2017 rates) per litre. 

“This was right up our alley, and we emerged as one of the top 5 finalists in the competition and clinched a $50,000 grant. We realised that we had raked up enough resources to set up a unit and began working on the project full time,” the cofounder remembered. 

Since then, there has been no turning back for the founders of Uravu Labs. Subsequently, the duo quadrupled as they welcomed Pardeep Garg and Govinda Balaji as two other cofounders of the watertech startup.

Uravu Makes A Splash

After extensive research, the cofounders soon pivoted from using silica gel to dirt-cheap calcium chloride for the same process that other countries spend a fortune on to make water. With the same working wonders for them, the startup now produces 1,000-1,200 litres of water a day, packages it for its clients and delivers it to a clutch of independent cafes in and around Bengaluru. 

The magic happens at its shipping container-sized facility in North Bengaluru, which it plans to further scale to 10,000 litres a day in the next 12 months and 1 Lakh litres a day in the next two years. 

“We have not forgotten our mission and vision. We are only catering to premium clients so that we can sustain our operations comfortably and work on our larger aspiration of serving India’s drought-ridden regions,” said Shrivastav. 

However, the irony of the matter is that the startup is stuck between the production and demand loop and, until and unless, it figures out a way to align them both, this could prevail for a while. 

“Against a demand of 3,000 litres, we are stuck at nearly half, which we rapidly plan to scale in the coming months,” added the cofounder. 

Still Waters Run Deeper

To effectively utilise its sole production facility, the watertech startup is eyeing the production of other beverage products at the plant such as tonic water, ginger ale and flavoured water. It is easier for Uravu Labs to build an assembly line for such offerings at the same factory as water produced from the AWG is churned out across varied pH degrees, enabling Uravu Labs to directly build a pipeline for such beverages at no extra cost. 

The company refused to divulge any information about its financials. However, the company is flushed with capital after a recent $2.3 Mn fundraise. 

Backed by names such as Speciale Invest, JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation and Anicut Capital, the startup also has global ambitions and is working on commencing a pilot project in Japan as part of its investor commitments.

It is also in talks with several stakeholders to foray into the Middle-Eastern and African markets, specifically in Morocco and North Africa, in the near future. 

In India, it competes directly with peers such as Maithri Aquatech and Akvo. 

Going forward, Uravu Labs is also mulling spreading its wings to other major cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The startup may also look at raising funds later this year to fuel and scale up its operations. 

In Troubled Waters?

Even as the startup has benefitted from growing conversations around climate change, the road ahead does not seem so smooth. The startup has problems galore as it is awaiting clearances for its pending patents. 

Further, there are apprehensions about the impact of such technologies on the climate in the event of a full-scale deployment, especially with regard to the local water cycle.

Even though the company does not have a plethora of regulatory compliances to deal with currently, it could face related headwinds as more and more players enter the growing field in the future. 

Additionally, the water extracted by the startup only serves a specific segment and does not solve India’s larger problems, a cause which espoused the cofounders’ interest in the field at the outset. 

India’s water woes today run deeper than what the startup claims to produce everyday. Against the recommended average of 3 litres per person per day, the startup produces only 1,200 litres in a day, which is just enough for 400 people. 

However, the major tailwind for the startup is that it is operating in the larger Indian bottled water market that is expected to reach a size of $36.21 Bn by 2030.