Echoes From VanTEC Oct 7 2008

This month’s angel investors meeting was dedicated to the high-tech startups (every other month is Life Sciences).

I found two startup companies that stood out, both in the “do good” space:

H2O3 Inc

Tim Piwonka-Corle, presented H2O3 Inc, whose product is a portable water disinfection unit that you can see on the right. The process is done using an ozone sterilizer, which uses less than 100 Watts of power (think incandescent light bulb). Each unit is able to produce 20 liters of sterile water in about 15 minutes.

Now the original purpose of this device was to help the third world countries, where contaminated water sources is the main cause of a high death-rate. And since this unit’s operation cost is supposedly quite affordable in poor countries it could make a huge difference to people who live in those areas. The upfront cost though might be still pretty high though, but Tim suggested that they will get that cost down as they improve things.

But the interesting thing is that this same device could have a variety of other applications, where a lot of money can be made. And two things that Tim mentioned were military usage and residential pool & spa industry. While the former is quite obvious, the latter has to do with chemicals used to disinfect water in pools. Those chemicals aren’t very healthy for our bodies, and therefore using Ozone to disinfect water is a much better proposition. And if the price is right, it could get a huge adoption there.

Apparently this is not a new idea, but H2O3 advantage is that they have a patented technology that is much more efficient than most current competitors have.

It’s an interesting company, since it has a potential to accomplish two goals – do good and also be quite profitable for those involved in it.

MakeGood Technologies Inc.

Rick Goosen said that his company is all about giving things in a new way (giving 2.0 he said on his site). One of the projects that start with is socially responsible yellow pages. Rick identified the need for being able to find companies that are socially responsible, as there is a growing segment of population that boycotts companies that aren’t socially responsible. Yet it’s very difficult to find the companies that fit the bill. Rick’s idea is to develop a process that will certify companies as socially responsible and give budges to those companies, which they can post on their sites and products, and thus attract more customers.

As any new idea, it’s hard to tell how their idea will work out, so we will just have to wait and see.

Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneur pitch, startup, vantec