Featured Startup Pitch: Dublin-based Watly has built a solar-powered electricity, water filtration and Internet connectivity device for infrastructure-poor regions

By Marco A. Attisani, Watly founder and CEO

Elevator Pitch: Watly is an integrated utility machine that desalinates and purifies water, provides free electricity, and allows Internet connectivity, by exclusively harvesting solar energy.

Product/Service Description

Watly is a promising company founded in 2013 by idealistic and committed people supported by Startupbootcamp HighTech XL Eindhoven, and Tecnocampus, Barcelona. We have designed an integrated utility machine that desalinates and purifies water, provides free electricity, and allows Internet connectivity.

Founder’s Story

My Vision

I am a Singularitarian and Transhumanist, interested in artificial intelligence (AI), high-tech, robotics, futurism, Law of Accelerating Returns, and, of course, renewable energy. In a couple of decades I will be a human version 2.0, enjoining life for an extra 150 years…at least until the moment I will reach human version 3.0 status. At that point, ‘virtuality’ will be commonplace for hyper-intelligent beings, and life extension will be infinite. I really hope to meet many of my dear friends there.

My Mission

I am trying to create business models that could be soon run by AI. I am not interested in dealing with business models that in ten years will simply be extinct.

At present I am still a simple human 1.0, working and skydiving, both very hard.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

One of Watly’s initial strategies is to run a series of pilots to test the market by delivering several units of Watly to areas with poor infrastructure, and letting the end-users validate the need for the product. Watly is also in the process of closing customer and partnership deals with NGOs, private foundations and international investors. We want to leverage on the execution power that these organizations have worldwide; we can provide the tool they need to solve the basic needs of humankind—water, electricity, and connectivity.

Market Opportunity

Nearly one billion people lack the access to clean water, three billion people do not have access to electricity and connectivity. This Base of The Pyramid (BOP) has spending power of over $3.7 trillion per annum.

Naturally, there are several competitors in the market. The existing solutions are mainly technologies that require constant maintenance and/or with high installation cost. Reality is that Watly does not directly compete with any specific product or company. It simply set a new product paradigm.

How We Differentiate From the Competition

The existing solutions in the market are the typical industrial kind of companies that miss completely the importance of the intangible values. They sell unfriendly, not ergonomic technologies. They compete in the commodity market, not in the high value of brands.

There are different proven solutions for cleaning water like reverse osmosis and ultraviolet treatment, but they are more a complementary solution rather than full substitutes of our own solution.

When we discuss about water desalination and puriﬁcation, we need to take into consideration different kinds of operational costs—initial investment, energy consumption cost, maintenance costs. Watly is a stand-alone unit that does not require installation, maintenance nor technical know-how to run it. All you need is ‘play’; there is no need to plug it since it runs with solar energy alone.

Business Model

In the first instance, we are expecting to sell our units through dealers, direct sales, and micro-lending.

Current Needs

We are currently participating in Europe’s leading accelerator program, Startupbootcamp HighTechXL, located in Eindhoven High Tech Campus, ‘Europe’s smartest square mile.’ We are in the process of finalizing Watly2, a highly-sophisticated pre-industrial model that will be completed by end January, 2014.

At the end of the program, we will have the chance to pitch to top Angel investors and venture capitalists for funding at the Investors’ Demo Day on 21st February, 2014. We are expecting to raise anywhere between half-a-million-and-two million dollars.

We are also looking for global technological supply chain partners that have the network and resources to scale Watly to the next level.

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Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland