Sloan Startup Uses Data to Out-Design Bottled Water
Bottled water is a problem, but how can you “out-design” it? Sean Grundy, Frank Lee and Eliza Becton, a trio of MIT Sloan 2013 alumni, recently earned another round of investment funding for their smart water cooler company Bevi, which uses data to tap into the bottled water market.
Bevi’s mission is to disrupt the beverage industry by using smart coolers that hold four separate flavors at a time and “a touchscreen interface to customize each drink, which rewards users with a badge when they have hit a threshold of saving a certain number of bottles.” Each 2×2’ Bevi can “save an average of 30,000 bottles” and in just four brief years, the company has reportedly saved 10 million bottles.
The recent MIT Newsroom article from Rebecca Linke explains that Bevi’s “Internet of Things-enabled devices are constantly monitoring use,” sending diagnostic data to service providers who can refill flavors when they run low. This data can also be used to understand “what flavors are popular and track trends based on geography, which it will use to launch future flavors.”
So far Bevi has sold 1,000 machines to nearly 400 clients, including Apple, Netflix and Fidelity, where beverage costs have been reduced by as much as 50 percent, according to Lee. With this impressive early start, it’s not surprising that Bevi and Trinity Ventures have managed to raise $16.5 million in Series B funding.
Bevi is currently available in the lower 48 and Hong Kong, with “plans to expand into more U.S. markets and Canada soon.” For more information, head to the official Bevi website.
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
