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Contents
Ruchir and Vandana launched Cap2O after 15 years of experience in the production engineering field. He wanted to be an entrepreneur and launch a sustainable product company. Together they brainstormed and decided to create a product that would help a user get safe drinking water on-the-go anywhere. Their tagline on the website sums up the Cap2O belief extremely well –
“YOU ARE 60% water, MAKE SURE IT IS 100% PURE”
How did the idea come about?
Ruchir and Vandana, based in Noida, were working on a UV (ultraviolet) device in the peak of the Covid pandemic. They had spent a lot of time studying and learning about the UVC technology and created and patented a product. After that, they wanted to make another product that was independent of the Covid requirements. The motivation to create a portable device that can give you pure drinking water was their then-6 year old son who struggled with diarrhoea, a water borne disease. They spent 2.5 years doing R&D and started making a prototype. They started work on the product in late 2020 leading to the launch in February 2022.
The technology of the self-sterilizing water bottles
The technology of their self-sterilizing bottles is in the cap. A UVC LED lamp is inbuilt in the smart cap, which also includes a temperature sensor and a charging port. The home screen of the cap displays the water temperature and the battery bar. Triple tapping on the home screen puts the UVC light on and it stays on for 5 minutes. This process is called e-boiling and according to Ruchir is equivalent to 20 mins of regular boiling. Cap2O’s technology kills the bacteria, pathogens and microorganisms in the water and in the bottle, by disintegrating the DNA of the bacteria. After 5 mins the LED lamp will stop automatically and the water will be 100% potable. This is the master feature of Cap2O. Ruchir and Vandana have ensured that their technology is NABL lab accredited giving it a much-required authentication for consumers. Cap2O is trying to educate customers on how the UV technology works, and how using their self-sterilizing water bottles eliminates the risk of water-borne diseases that kids usually suffer from.
How does it differ from a home purifier?
Ruchir explains that their technology differs from the regular home RO (reverse osmosis) systems that most people use today. Those systems usually have 3 features – the reverse osmosis removes dust particles and some bacteria; the MTDS reduces TDS and a 2-3 watts UV lamp kills bacteria and pathogens. Unfortunately the life of that lamp is only 375 days and servicing of the purifier does not cover changing the lamp when its efficacy is over. While the filters are changed during every service, the lamp is only replaced when it becomes defunct. This means that the UVC feature of the purifier is not actually working at all. That’s the differentiating factor of Cap2O. Their LED lamp has a life of 55000 hours, lasting for almost 5 years, giving you continuous protection from water-borne bacteria.
How often does the bottle need to be recharged?
Cap2O provides a charging cable which fully charges the bottle in one hour. After a single charge, it works for 20-25 days easily, sterilizing 3 to 4 times a day.
Who is Cap2O’s target audience?
Their target audience is millennials, who understand the technology and are concerned with sustainability. A huge customer base for them also is children, since they are the most susceptible to water-borne diseases. While they have global competition from rapidly growing companies in the US and Europe, they are the first company in India with this technology. They do plan to expand to the US and European market in the near future but their main consumer base will be in India itself.
What are some use cases of the Cap2O bottle?
Cap2O bottles are designed for everyone, whether it is a child going to school or adults going to office. It has been made super user-friendly and is a sustainable alternative to plastic bottles that we buy and throw. Ruchir gives us the example of villages in Telangana that have very poor water quality and receive water bottles at a highly subsidized rate from the government. In the last year, Cap2O has gotten a lot of orders from those villages. In conversation with the locals to understand why that is, Ruchir learned that the people in the area are not satisfied with using the public RO systems that don’t eliminate bacteria and would much rather use these self-sterilizing bottles.
The challenges Ruchir and Vandana have faced in their journey
Their biggest challenge so far has been making an electronic product themselves. Ruchir explains how hard it was to launch a bootstrapped product company. They needed to do multiple iterations, designs and configurations, which required a lot of capital investment. It was a massive struggle to create the best possible product using available resources. He is very grateful to his colleagues and college seniors who helped him a lot in R&D in the initial stages.
Is Cap2O entirely made in India?
Ruchir admits that some of the parts for their bottle are imported from China, but their vision and plan for the next year is to have their product 100% manufactured in India. This would help them reduce the price of Cap2O bottles by 60-70% and reach the masses, even in the villages of India, giving them fresh healthy water to drink.
The Cap2O team
They are a 2 person team, with Vandana doing the marketing and Ruchir overseeing everything else. They have also outsourced their marketing and sales to an agency who has 10 to 12 people 100% dedicated to Cap2O.
The cost and market size of the self-sterilizing bottle
The Cap2O bottle is priced at INR 2500 in India, with their closest competitor in the country priced between INR 8,000-20,000. In the US market a similar bottle is priced between 50 – 200 USD with similar prices seen in the European and British markets. Since the technology is only a couple of years old, they don’t have any real competition from an Indian manufacturing company except for smart water bottles that simply monitor water intake without UVC sterilization. Cap2O wants to be affordable and appeal to the mass audience and hence they are trying to cut down prices further by 40-50%. They are confident that Indians adapt very fast to new technology with studies showing that India is the biggest market for smart devices globally. Ruchir believes that the smart bottle market is only going to grow rapidly in the near future – in 2023 itself, just the US market for self-sterilizing bottles was 145 million USD.
What does the future look like for Cap2O?
In the future, they plan to put replaceable carbon filters in the cap to remove dust particles. Additionally, they plan to integrate the cap with an app that can be connected with consumer devices and add the water consumption monitoring feature for further ease to users. Ruchir also hopes to be able to expand their team soon. He says that they’re getting good traction from B2B clients for sustainable gifting options and would like to hire more people towards their B2B business. Cap2O’s aim is to sell via offline and online channels in India and of course to go global. While they have no immediate plan for offline retail, it is something they are exploring in the next 6 – 8 months.
Ruchir and Vandana’s personal sustainability practices
Ruchir and Vandana talk to us about their personal sustainability practices which include –
- Not using plastic bags
- Carrying their own bags while going out shopping
- Reusing plastic bags and containers as much as they can to reduce the purchase of more plastic
- Giving people who work for them steel water bottles so they can stop using plastic bottles on a regular basis and also get cold water to drink
The Cap2O’s team message to the audience
Ruchir and Vandana’s message to people around them is –
Stick to your cause and practice what you preach
If you have a vision and are 100% dedicated to what you want to achieve, go for it!
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