One of the dairy companies in South India had to shut for 18 days as it faced problems with water. It proved to be detrimental as its competitors walked away with most of its customers.
Not just dairy companies, even other firms in various sectors face water risks, including regulations and enforcement. This is where Bengaluru-based FluxGen stepped in to provide end-to-end water intelligence solutions.
Today, the start-up has 100-plus clients across India, the Middle East and Africa. “Our goal is to solve industries which could be affected because of this impending water risk due to rapid urbanisation and climate change,” said Ganesh Shankar, Founder & CEO of the start-up.
SaaS platform
FluxGen’s thesis is to solve water challenges by making its data transparent and building a solution around it to intervene in any issue.
“We initially started with agriculture. That didn’t work out because nobody pays for water or electricity in agriculture. So we could not figure out any business case for water management in agriculture. On the other hand, industries buy water and face risks from regulation to enforcement,” he told businessline in an online interaction.
FluxGen helps in identifying inefficiencies in water usage, such as leakage, waste, and excess tapping, through its Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The company monitors water flow, level, quality, energy consumed and digitises the entire chain via a cloud platform. It provides web and mobile application solutions.
“It is a SaaS platform where you can point out where the leakage or wastage, or excess usage is. Then corrective action can be taken, and in some cases, the consumption has been brought down by 30 per cent,” said Shankar, who worked in the solar space for over a decade.
Cutting water intake
This helps industries to cut down on water consumption and spend less on it eventually. At the same time, there is no risk to the business.
“Our impact is multifold to bring in accountability to all forms of water, rainwater, wastewater and groundwater. We track the groundwater level. Our systems helps in ensuring clients are compliant to Central Ground Water Authority regulation,” he said.
The Ground Water Authority requires industries to reduce the withdrawal of ground water by 20 per cent in three years and reduce increase the water level in the aquifers by 20 per cent.
On the company’s journey, he said: “We started in a small way by monitoring water. Today, we have a full suite of monitoring to identify efficiency, leakage and excess usage. We bring in accountability on rainwater harvesting too., We check the performance of rainwater harvesting and even wastewater treatment.”
Tracking quality
Today, regulations stipulate zero liquid discharge. This means no untreated water can be discharged, and the treated water should be of a certain quality. But many times, the quality of such water is questionable.
“This is where we bring in our accountability, tracking the quality. We digitise the entire wastewater treatment plant. We would call it as used water because it’s just used and not wasted. We have been able to identify inefficiencies in used water treatment as well,” said the company founder and CEO.
FluxGen avoids wastage of energy in used water treatment and has helped cut energy consumption by 15-25 per cent, he claimed.
“Through our technology, we have developed a visualisation. We also have an AI platform. We have been able to help in providing this platform to our large customers. We have the Tata Group, including Tata Steel, Tata Power, Aditya Birla fashion and retail and Microsoft. We have a master service agreement with Microsoft, and we have been working on their water replenishment projects,” said Shankar.
Water-secure future
The Bengaluru-based startup has extended its operations across various locations. “Our goal is to build a water-secure future, a water-positive future and through digital digitisation. We help cut corporate water usage and the use of power. We help our customers reduce their freshwater intake,” he said.
On how the company helps reduce wastage of water, the CEO said it is done through algorithms, which help detect and identify the problem. This alerts the staff through alert notification who then take the necessary action. Its AI platforms will also show that water is getting wasted. “Everything is IoT, and it uses the existing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), if required,” said Shankar, adding that the alerts are made in a matter of 5-10 minutes.
Customers use the software through a mobile app and a web application. “There are different applications for different levels of leadership. The senior-most leadership would not want to get small alerts or notifications of like one kilolitre of water getting wasted,” he said.
The company has so far saved over 5 billion litres of water that can fill about 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. When water consumption is reduced by an industry, the groundwater withdrawal is reduced. “This is particularly crucial as today 21 Indian cities are running out of groundwater according to the Niti Aayog report,” said Shankar, adding that it also cuts the amount of water contamination.
Making industries water-positive
On making industries water positive, he said this means they consume as little water as possible, utilising rainwater for needs and augmenting remaining fresh water requirements through wastewater treatment. Shankar said it also means the industry needs to get water from utilities or tap groundwater.
FluxGen works on municipal water management in Dehradun in Uttarakhand. The company is expanding other projects across the country, he said.
Backed by IAN Alpha Fund in its ₹28 crore ($3.36 million) Pre-Series A round in 2023, FluxGen recently closed another round of funding with Infosys founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibhulal taking part.