Low-Cost Ceramic Membrane for Decentralised Water Purification
Five years of plateaued revenue and three rejected government tenders were resolved with a BIS certification roadmap, a system-level partnership, and two international water-access grants.
- Origin
- NIT chemical engineering department
- Founded
- 2019
- Core Innovation
- Clay-based ultrafiltration membrane, patented sintering process, 99.9% bacterial removal at ₹180 per unit vs ₹1,200 for polymer alternatives. Five years founder-funded operation prior to engagement; revenue plateaued at ₹14 lakh annually for three consecutive years.
- Capital Outcome
- ₹2.40 Crore: USAID Water Security for Health and a Gates Foundation WASH-adjacent programme
Diagnostic findings at engagement
- Three government tender applications had been submitted and rejected at the technical bid stage, in each case for absence of Bureau of Indian Standards certification under IS 15498.
- No awareness existed of USAID's Water Security programme or the Gates Foundation's WASH-adjacent funding streams as potential capital sources.
- Investor and partner pitches framed the company narrowly as a lower-cost membrane component, without a story connecting the product to a system-level deployment model or a national policy framework.
- No system integration partner had been identified; the company sold the membrane component in isolation rather than as part of a complete water purification system.
Service interventions applied
Narrative Restructuring
Repositioned the company from “lower-cost membrane supplier” to “India's first fully indigenous decentralised water purification solution addressing the last-mile quality gap in the Jal Jeevan Mission,” connecting the product directly to the Government of India's ₹3.6 lakh crore rural piped water infrastructure programme.
Grant Narrative: USAID Water Security
Built the application around USAID's Water Security for Health strategic objective, quantifying disability-adjusted life years attributable to waterborne disease in target districts and positioning the membrane's cost profile as the removed barrier to community-level treatment adoption.
Grant Narrative: Gates Foundation
Constructed the economic case around comparative cost: ₹2 per person per month for water security via the membrane system versus ₹47 per person per month spent on bottled water by rural households without reliable purified access, aligned to the Foundation's water-adjacent funding mandate.
Regulatory Strategy
Mapped the Bureau of Indian Standards IS 15498 certification process for ceramic water filters and identified the fastest-turnaround NABL-accredited testing laboratory, producing a nine-month certification roadmap to unlock government tender eligibility: the channel blocked for the prior five years.
Partnership Strategy
Identified and structured a supply agreement with a social enterprise operating community water kiosks in Rajasthan, repositioning the membrane as the core component of a complete system rather than a standalone component sale.
Financial Model Reconstruction
Rebuilt the revenue model from a single membrane unit sale at ₹180 to a system-level lifetime value model incorporating membrane replacement revenue on an 18-month cycle and service contract revenue, producing a per-kiosk lifetime value of ₹42,000 over five years.
Position at engagement vs. position at close
Swipe the table sideways to compare.
| Dimension | At engagement | At close |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue Model | One-time component sale, ₹180 per unit | System lifetime value model, ₹42,000 per kiosk over five years |
| Regulatory Status | No BIS certification; blocked from government tenders | Certification roadmap mapped, testing initiated |
| Partnerships | None | System integration agreement executed |
| Capital Secured | ₹0 | ₹2.40 Crore |