Startup Circle: How is Curol+ helping reduce air pollution and monitor the effects?

Curol+, a young startup with a young team, strives to solve an issue affecting all strata of societies and all age groups - Air Pollution. The company aims to solve this issue with a scientifically proven tested formulation and with tech, monitor the effectiveness of its products. Read Dhruv Bhatnagar, CEO, Curol+ and DB Life Sciences outline the changes they have brought to the market and the effects of Curol's offerings.

How did you come up with the idea?

Curol+ was born just for the reason of solving a common ailment that many children all over the world face - allergies caused by dust and pollutants. It started as a home solution but we encountered a genuine product that could solve this issue worldwide and could tackle both indoor and outdoor pollutants and dust. We are continuously researching and developing products and improving our offering.

Because of the changing times and innovations, we added a lot of tech into our offering making it more attractive to the ever-increasing tech-hungry consumer - with our app and monitors. Curol+ will reduce air pollution and monitor it too.

What are the changes you are bringing into the market?

We are not changing any of the current offerings of the market. Curol+ is a completely different segment – with no competition in the world. Our product improves air quality both indoor and outdoor as a whole; giving a much better breathing environment to the user. The benefits of good air quality are not limited to the corner of a room like in the case of an air purifier. This patented formulation purifies the entire cubic feet of air.

How are consumers adjusting to the challenges of tech in home-cleaning?

I think tech in the purification space is not actually posing challenges but it has converted itself into a very important tool—Monitoring. Tech in the space helps us monitor real-time data of air and gives us a true picture of what the quality of air is and whether it is improving with the use of various products we deploy. And here at Curol+, we are all for it.

We appreciate how tech helps to monitor this field and for this purpose, we have developed our own low-cost monitor. It is 60% cheaper than market alternatives (monitoring- PM Levels / Lux (light) levels / dB (sound) levels humidity and temperature). We also have our own app to give an individual home user access and the option to monitor air quality. This device is accurate to the T.

However, if consumers have already purchased market alternatives for monitoring Air quality, we don’t encourage them to buy our monitor. They can see the effectiveness of Curol+ in the results recorded by any monitor present in the market.

What is your business/market growth? Who are your consumers?

We are a young company – just trying to jump over the obstacles posed by COVID-19. We believe the world is facing a huge problem of dust and pollution and it is ever increasing – thus we have an ocean of opportunities and we want to take them on one by one. Currently, we are majorly into the B2B segment – corporate offices, MNCs, manufacturing units, schools, commercial areas and common public areas.

We want to expand, as we believe that it will help people who spend a large part of their day at work or office or school. Additionally, we want to work with governments to deploy or scientifically proven methods to reduce air pollution and dust suspension outdoor on roads, parks, pathways and landfills. We also want to make a presence in the B2C segment. Here, home users can deploy Curol+ and protect their loved ones from the harmful effects of Air pollution and dust.

The team understands the challenges that lie ahead to reach a B2C consumer and are taking them head-on.

What has 2020 changed for you? How are things now?

2020 was a tough year. We launched Curol+ in the market just before Covid hit India. Then the country went into lockdown. So, our B2B clients shut down and didn’t purchase the product. But as it opened up we saw a multifold rise in demand and people were more cautious about air quality and PM levels. Large companies approached us for their common areas and office complexes; restaurants and hotels started purchasing as well. So we saw an unexpected upward trend.

An advantage that we got was that a report was published by Harvard University – it stated that places with lower levels of PM levels had low transmission rates and fatality rates of the deadly COVID-19 Virus.

Now, Curol+ reduces the PM levels by 65% in 7 days so we, in theory, can achieve a safer environment. This got us a lot of traction. For now, we have a lot of plans ready to be deployed to make the world a better place. But we will have to wait and see how the situation pans out as 2021 is a lot like 2020, if not worse.

Funding

Currently, the company is bootstrapped and initially funded through our other business. We intend on building our monthly recurring revenue to move past the sustaining stage that we currently are in. As of today, it sustains and provides some growth as well. With the revenue from the past year, we aim at increasing our presence in the B2B and B2C market and turn our revenue to drive growth.