About the Founder
Priyanshu Kumath, the founder of Clean-Water belongs to Indore and is an alumnus of IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in Civil Engineering. The company’s principal product is called the ‘Floating Islands’.
What’s Clean-Water?
This startup began by providing the Services to help organizations build Waste Water Treatment Plants like Sewage Treatment Plants (STP/ETPs, etc.) for private and Government institutions thereby helping them to recycle Water and then, reuse it for gardening, flushing, and so on to tackle the problem of Water Pollution & Water Scarcity.
Over time, this startup has developed a product called Floating Islands for Restoring and Beautifying Water-Bodies. Floating Islands float on Water and provide the below-mentioned benefits:
- Improve Water Quality & Reduce Algal Blooms
- Provide Habitat to Restore Ecology & Biodiversity
- Beautify the Surroundings
- Reduce Evaporation
- Reduce Greenhouse Emissions
Any individual, Government, or organization restoring and beautifying the water-bodies (like lake, river, drain, etc.) can buy the Islands from the startup brand and plant them while installing them to float on any water-body.
Check out the website for Clean-Water here.
Idea and Inspiration behind Clean-Water
At the tender age of 25, Priyanshu Kumath got an excellent opportunity to hire, train, and lead a team of 700 people with a startup called Housing.com. This experience gave him the confidence that he can also conduct an organization by himself.
Fortunately, at that time, he also realized that the best way to spend his limited lifetime is by solving the most pressing problems of today, such as saving water. Thus, he moved back to his hometown, Indore and started Clean Water to address the issues of Water Scarcity & Water Pollution.
The team began by setting up STPs, ETPs, and giving Services as Consultants to earn the bread-butter and cover the costs. But soon, he realized that most obvious Water Management Infrastructure, the water-bodies are completely overlooked; not even 1% water—bodies are restored. Also, there are millions of water-bodies in the environment. If the team follows a services approach such as consultants and contractors, they may reach a few hundred water-bodies at best in the limited lifetimes. So they decided to build sustainable, scalable products for the Restoring & Beautifying water-bodies.
The aim is not just to clean the Water but also to promote and restore the ecology and also make water-bodies centers of recreation, relaxation, and tourism.
Challenges during the outset
Starting an organization from scratch was the biggest challenge. Getting the first few projects with no past track record was the first challenge. Dealing with government authorities was also a roadblock. As the team scales, funding, and access to capital was the next challenge. The unprofessional attitude of vendors across the market can also become a challenge. Unscrupulous businesspeople cause problems related to timely payments and delivery.
Keeping up with all the new technologies/products/solutions across the world is another challenge of this changing world today. Creating one’s own new technology/product is also challenging, and to protect them from getting copied is very crucial.
Government Funding is still slow in this sector, which is also a rate-determining step as water-bodies in general fall under the purview of the Government.
Introducing new technologies or products in the government sector comes with its own set of challenges.
Works/Collaborations and Experiences
The startup is collaborating with a Not For Profit organization called CDD (Consortium for DEWATS Dissemination), Bangalore. It has set up a research facility inside Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) Bangalore to measure the treatment efficiencies of various types of Floating Islands.
During the interview with TimesNext, Priyanshu stated,
“The experience of working with like-minded educated individuals is always nice. The people at CDD are very nice, welcoming, intelligent, and motivated.”
First milestone
The startup’s first milestone was founding the organization in 2016 and bagging the first project. Everything post that has been a natural progression of getting new projects, creating a new product, restoring lakes, getting an award of Water Hero from Jal Shakti Ministry, GOI.
Company’s current growth status
- The organization to date has got more than 25 projects of Treatment Plants.
- The team has restored one lake.
- The startup has made 14 types of Floating Islands and installed them on more than ten water-bodies
- The startup has also bagged awards and Recognition, such as the award of Water Hero from Jal Shakti Ministry, GOI.
Clean-Water – The Vision
The startup wants to be Product Manufacturers of Floating Islands for being able to cater to the millions of water-bodies that would Restore and Beautify them. The team is establishing a Distributor Channel across the country to scale across geographies and offer services to various government organizations.
The startup aims to be catalysts and facilitators towards Restoration of water-bodies, Restoring of Ecology & Biodiversity.
