Right this moment, Air Water Ventures (beforehand often called Eshara Water) and the publicly listed SPAC Athena Expertise Acquisition Corp. II introduced a enterprise mixture settlement, leading to a brand new firm known as The Air Water Firm. This merger will set up the primary publicly traded air-to-water expertise pure-play when the mixed firm begins buying and selling on the New York Inventory Change, anticipated within the first quarter of 2024.
Air Water Enterprise’s expertise makes use of an airflow system that extracts the water from the atmosphere utilizing its atmospheric water mills. In response to Air Water’s CEO Alex Man, the expertise is sensible for locations just like the Center East which have little entry to groundwater or floor water.
Man first encountered air-to-water expertise whereas working in personal fairness within the Center East. In 2018, he was launched to a UK firm with air-to-water expertise that quickly went bankrupt. Man acknowledged the curiosity on this expertise within the UAE and started exploring the creation of an air-to-water firm.
“Nobody had heard about it,” Man advised The Spoon. “It nearly sounds too good to be true. You have a look at an air-to-water unit, you look across the again to see the place the hose pipe is plugged in, as a result of nobody fairly believes it produces water simply from extracting humidity within the air.”
After founding the corporate in 2019, the primary venture concerned growing a 1,000-liter per day air-to-water generator in partnership with Raytheon. The founding crew initially believed this expertise would primarily profit navy and catastrophe reduction efforts.
“The essential thesis of the venture was it was an try to scale back the price of transporting plastic bottled water for the frontline navy personnel.”
Nonetheless, Man and his co-founders quickly realized the potential for a client and business product portfolio.
“Accommodations and faculties have been underneath stress to take away plastic,” Man stated. “Massive corporates within the UAE all made commitments to eradicate plastic bottles by 2022-2023. So we noticed a chance there to attempt to assist with that motion away from plastic.”
Right this moment, the corporate’s expertise is being deployed within the Center East, the place the corporate not too long ago accomplished a water manufacturing facility at a lodge in Abu Dhabi named the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr. The Fairmont’s set up consists of each an air-to-water generator that may produce as much as 4 thousand liters of ingesting water per day and a bottling plant.
Man anticipates that the IPO by way of SPAC with Athena will present the working capital to extend manufacturing of air-to-water mills and develop the product line. The corporate is growing residential and lodge room mills that may produce 2 or 5 liters per day. The two-liter residential unit, which Air Water is seeking to roll out within the US market within the subsequent yr, will retail for round $145. The 5-liter unit, which may go into lodge rooms in locations just like the Center East or the American Southwest, would produce water in-room and substitute “all of these plastic bottles that sit subsequent to a Nespresso machine.”
The corporate plans to develop its business choices, producing a variety of merchandise able to producing 10, 20, 30 liters as much as 50,000 liters. Man envisions their answer as a complete providing for bigger business installations in search of to eradicate plastic, partly as a result of firm’s skill to create automated bottling crops.
Man believes that whereas the preliminary attraction of their expertise is to scale back plastic utilization, the rising water disaster in areas just like the US Southwest will turn into an extra driving power over time.
“The sustainability-driven client goes to give attention to plastic consumption, however in the end, I believe that focus goes to shift to the supply of water,” Man stated. “You recognize, the place is the water truly coming from?”
Man believes that their product will work effectively in places with enough humidity to provide water from air, reminiscent of Florida or Arizona within the US. In distinction, states like Washington could not present sufficient humidity throughout sure seasons like winter for the expertise to operate successfully. Internationally, international locations like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, which have appropriate environmental situations and inadequate conventional water infrastructure, may gain advantage from their answer.
“I believe air-to-water expertise is a less expensive answer (there), since you do away with all of that conventional water infrastructure that you just often must construct.”
The Air Water Firm isn’t the one firm targeted on constructing air-to-water mills. Arizona-based Supply Water, initially known as Zero Mass Water, is constructing air-to-water expertise utilizing photo voltaic panels that extract water from air. The corporate has raised $150 million from the likes of Invoice Gates and Black Rock. Israel-based WaterGen, which has acquired funding from the Israel authorities, has deployed its expertise into quite a few international locations which lack clear ingesting water. And at this yr’s CES, Kara Water confirmed off its 10L dwelling and workplace unit that may produce alkaline-rich water from air.
In response to the announcement, the newly fashioned firm may have a pre-money fairness worth of $300 million and may have as much as $60 million in financing to fund the expansion of the corporate.
