Drinkwell
Location
Bangladesh
Sector
Water
Type of Investment
Risk Capital
Project Stage
Test & Transition
Length of Investment
2019+
Website
Investment Overview
A social enterprise aiming to provide access to affordable and clean drinking water for millions of underserved urban customers for the first time. Through Water ATM-enabled systems, Drinkwells solution has the potential to improve the lives of low-income urban slum dwellers in Bangladesh where there is a low rate of piped clean drinking water.
The Development Challenge
Drinkwells typical end users face multiple challenges. In the urban markets where GIFs investment into Drinkwell will be focused, faecal coliform is the primary impurity found in water. Urban customers often have to pay elevated prices for water from either informal middlemen, who deliver water in unhygienic containers; or informal pump operators. In both scenarios, collected water often contains multiple impurities, including over-concentration of certain heavy metals like iron and harmful bacteria. As a result, the water must be boiled before it can be consumed, a task that is disproportionately performed by women and girls.
The Innovation
A combination of patented purification technology, filtration, and pay-as-you-go cards underpin an easy-to-operate turnkey solution. Each system serves between 200 and 2,400 households, employs 1-3 people, and lasts for at least 10 years.
Our Investment
A $500,000 convertible loan. With GIFs investment, Drinkwell is working towards installing over 200 systems with the Dhaka Water Supply & Sewerage Authority (DWASA), the utility in charge of water and sanitation in Bangladeshs capital.
Investment Objective
The successful installation and operation of water systems. Systems demonstrate lasting and measurable impact to end users through cost and time savings, improvements to quality of life, and by addressing contamination issues between point of collection and household use thereby leading to improved health outcomes.
Why we invested
Drinkwell has scaled its innovative systems as part of a unique partnership with some of the leading water utilities in Bangladesh and India. The innovation is solving a major global crisis affecting millions of people living on less than $5 a day in a strategically important sector (water) and region (South Asia) to GIF.
Drinkwell also provides data for water utilities to take advantage of, enabling the measurement of end user activity at each dispensing point, which has previously been untracked. This data can inform ways to improve public service provision. The data can also enhance service delivery and its impact, through gender-disaggregated information on end-user water access, water consumption pattern, and payments.
Drinkwell in numbers
Water kiosks deployed across Bangladesh and India
People impacted across Bangladesh and India
Drinkwell Impact Brief
A social enterprise providing access to affordable and clean drinking water for millions of underserved customers for the first time. Through the innovative use of Water ATM-enabled systems, Drinkwell aims to improve the lives of low-income urban slum dwellers in Bangladesh where there is a low rate of piped clean drinking water.
Drinkwell is a water filtration operating and management company helping deliver safe, efficient, and affordable water to underserved communities. Drinkwell has partnerships with public utilities (for urban areas) financed with support of development funding. A Drinkwell Water ATM serves between 200-600 households (meaning roughly 1,000-3,000 users) per system through a prepaid pay-as-you-go model. Drinkwell filters water using a proprietary resin-based modular filtration system at a lower operating cost and with higher efficiency than many other conventional technologies such as Reverse Osmosis.
Use of GIF Funds
GIF aims to support Drinkwell’s partnership with urban water utilities by funding the installation, operation, and maintenance of urban water utility systems as well as other activities consistent with this mission, which are in aggregate: (i) capex, (ii) working capital, (iii) human resources, and (iv) sales and marketing.
Objectives
The successful installation and operation of 300 water systems with Dhaka WASA to pave way for scale-up across all of Dhaka city as well as replication with utilities and city corporations in other urban and peri-urban areas across Bangladesh, as well as an expansion of the model with Chittagong WASA.
Demonstrating that the system creates lasting and measurable impact to end users through cost and time savings, improvements to quality of life, and by addressing contamination issues between point of collection and household use, thereby creating improved health outcomes.
The adoption of the innovation across India and Bangladesh, and the ability to secure follow-on financing that allow the company to scale to 10m+ beneficiaries in 5 years.
Drinkwell continues to engage actively with GIF about enhancing the positive impact on end users and improving the measurement of said impact, potentially by engaging with other partners in GIF’s network to address recontamination risk and improve water quality from point of sourcing through to point of consumption.
Impact to Date
Drinkwell’s systems demonstrate lasting and measurable impact to end users through cost and time savings and improvements to quality of life. Drinkwell has 250 water kiosks installed and operating in Bangladesh. Responsive maintenance and customer response is now enabled through remote real time monitoring of the systems, kiosk caretakers and phone based customer service. In India, Drinkwell has installed and currently maintains 300 water kiosks. Collectively, Drinkwell has directly deployed 550 kiosks impacting over 1.7m people across Bangladesh and India.