DrinkPrime Making Safe Drinking Water Affordable With Its Subscription Models

Access to clean drinking water is a big problem in India. It is no less a challenge in urban India where bottled water has made deep inroads. But latest studies indicate that this water is not healthy.

Meanwhile, penetration of water purifiers remains low. To address such challenge, DrinkPrime is a company that is providing water purifiers on subscription basis where users are charged as per their water usage.

In a conversation with the Bizz Buzz, DrinkPrime’s Co-Founder, Manas Ranjan Hota said that the company is on a mission mode to provide safe drinking water to as many people as possible. The company is backed by marquee investors like Peak XV (Formerly Sequoia Capital India), SIDBI Venture Capital and others

What is the motivation behind setting up ‘DrinkPrime’? Can you provide a brief overview about the operations of the company?

We established the company formally in March 2016 but we have been attempting to solve the problem of how Indian middle-class people like you and me, can get access to good, safe, clean and healthy drinking water. So, the motivation behind starting up the company was how can we get Indian middle-class households to get access to safe clean and healthy drinking water. That was the time when I and my other co-founder, Vijendar Reddy were both working in IT sector. We were using bottled water for drinking. Out of curiosity, we did a deep dive into the drinking water industry. We were surprised to find out that water purifiers were only used by 10 to 12 per cent of urban Indian households while bottled water was being used between 30 to 35 per cent of urban Indian households.

What was even more shocking that eight out of 10 of all bottled water in circulation did not meet the basic government approved ISI and BIS safety norms. While in some cases, water was dirty, in other cases, there was a heavy amount of micro-plastics. So, many urban Indian households even after paying for drinking water are not able to get safe drinking water. We also found out that many householders were not using water purifiers because of initial cost of installation and high maintenance cost. So, we begin our journey of creating an enterprise which not focussed on profit alone but also has a social impact angle.

How the subscription model of DrinkPrime works? Can you throw some light into this aspect?

So, at DrinkPrime, what we realise that the cost of maintenance varies drastically across water purifiers. We figured out that charging people for their amount of usage will enable people to use purifiers at an affordable cost. And that's how the subscription concept was born. During the first two years, we focussed on product development.

We understood that water quality varied from area to area and we worked with original filter manufacturers to develop the filters that go into a purifier. We control the end-to-end process starting from manufacturing, assembly, post installation service and after that during the end of the tenure- the reverse pickup of the units as well. So, we have taken a full stack approach towards solving it.

Can you give some estimates about your user base now? How many cities do you have presence now?

It took us some time to build momentum but we have been actively deploying units from 2018-2019. Today, we are present in more than 1.5 lakh households. We are primarily present in three cities. In Bangalore, we are possibly the largest water purifier service provider. We are also present in Hyderabad and Delhi, which are growing rapidly. Very recently, we have opened in Mumbai and Pune.

We are very mission-oriented people and we have built the company to solve the drinking water problem of as many Indian people as possible. Urban India is our first approach and the near-term goal of the company is to reach a million households within the next two to three years. And as we embark on this journey, we would not stop till the time, water purifier penetration, which is at 10 to 12 per cent, increases to 50 to 60 per cent.

Can a user buy the water purifier, which you have installed at his/her home for getting drinking water on subscription basis?

Usually, a user cannot buy our water purifier because we feel that subscription is the best way for him/her to access the water purifier. We provide our water purifiers exclusively on subscription basis. However, after subscribing (the water purifier) for a few months, if anyone wants to own the asset, then we have a certain scheme because of which you can own the asset.

Who are your target customers? Are they basically young people residing in cities?

If I talk about our target group, everyone assumes that this is primarily bachelors but what we found while executing is something slightly different. Our target group is primarily renters which is 70 per cent of the people who use bottled water and stay in rented apartments. But they are not very young. The age group of our target customers varies between 25 and 40.

Can you give us some view about your pricing models?

We have different models of pricing. The pricing starts from Rs299 a month if anyone takes our basic mineral plus model and subscribe for a year. If you subscribe for the copper model, it is Rs333 per month if you subscribe annually. If you pay monthly for this plan, then it will be around Rs450- Rs550 per month.

How are you leveraging technology at DrinkPrime?

We have digitized the entire ecosystem. Through use of technology, one can monitor the water purifier about how many litres of water have been dispensed. It will give out alerts as to when your purifier is due for maintenance. It can also help you to provide alert on your next recharge. And we have a smart app on top of it, where the customer can log in service tickets, see how far is the technician, when the technician can come and visit the premises.

In addition to this, we also have our partner apps. Moreover, the entire IoT ecosystem is there in the purifiers. As we go forward, we are working on a couple of very interesting innovations. We are trying to see if we can shrink the product and bring down the cost of the product even further, so that we are able to provide this to even more households.

Are you planning to raise capital in the near future? Can you provide a view on this aspect?

We have been very fortunate to have the backings of a number of marquee investors both Indian and outside India. Peak XV (Formerly Sequoia Capital India) is one of the investors in our company. SIDBI Venture Capital is another investor. We similarly have 9 Unicorns and a few others leading angel consortiums, which have invested in our company.

In addition to that, we work with a number of NBFCs, who primarily allocate domestic capital in the form of debt to us. We are not actively thinking about raising capital as of now. So, we don't have that timeline as of now. We have a lot of inbound interest from our investors and we will continue to explore them as we go through the journey.