Chennai Startup AirOK Launches India’s 1st Locally Developed Smart Air Purifier
CHennai-based startup AirOK Technologies has launched India’s first indigenously developed smart air purifier ‘Vistar’ at Chennai on Saturday. Equipped with Wi-Fi and touch interface, the purifier has filter that is not only relatively more efficient but also last longer than other air purifiers.
Founded in 2014 by IIT-Madras alumni Deekshith Vara Prasad, Yasa Pavan Reddy and Sravan Krishna, the startup did 2 years of ground reality research and development to come up with hexagonal dual stratified filtering technology called – EGAPA (Efficient Granular Adsorbent Particulate Arrester) which can filter pollutants including air suspended particulate matter (SPM) up to 0.3 microns along with VOC`s, microbes, fungus, Pet dander’s and even gaseous substances.
Co-founders of AirOk Technologies –
(from left) Vanam Sravan Krishna, COO; V Deekshith Vara Prasad, CEO; and, Pavan Reddy, CTO
Image – TheHinduBusinessLine.com
The purifier named as ‘Vistar 550’ has coverage area of 550 square feet and will be priced at around Rs 20,000. Its indigenously developed filter will have a life of about one year, which is twice that of the air purifiers currently available in the market that typically need filter-replacecment once every 3-4 months.
AirOK Purifier | Image credit – airoktech.com
The purifier has been validated as positive by laboratory and field tests conducted at Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, Bengaluru and field trials by a Children specialty hospital in Chennai.
Incubated at IIT-Madras incubation cell, AirOK got ₹5 lakh seed fund from the incubation cell, which helped them test and validate the filter.
The startup had even caught the attention of Gurgaon-based SAR Group, the makers of water purifiers under Livpure brand, which then invested about ₹12 crore in AirOK, late last year. AirOK has licensed its residential segment product to SAR Group, which will be the distribution partner for it’s retail air-purifier product.
The startup can manufacture up to 30 units per day currently and can increase the production capacity to 1,000 without any major additional investment.
The startup is currently targeting institutional segment which includes hospitals, hospitality, commercial real estate, food processing and manufacturing in the initial phase.
Additionally, the startup is also working on a pipeline of products in the air pollution segment in association with one of the country’s oldest and largest conglomerate, which the startup didn’t disclosed. The pipeline includes purifiers for cars and kitchens. It is also indigenously working on solutions for issues such as ambient air pollution.
An another startup in Cleantech segment is Bonphul Air Products, Delhi-based product startup which makes OxyMax, which the startup claims as India’s first oxygen optimizer that increases the oxygen level in the indoor air from its current level to 21%, creating an environment of freshness and vigour. Bonphul has recently raised ₹2 Crore in an Angel Investment Round from Rx Infotech and Karmesh Global Technologies.
The indoor air purifier industry is growing at 45% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate), but experts believe that with ever increasing pollution in Indian cities the growth will increase to 55-60% CAGR in the next four years.
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