Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: We wanted to change gears, Matt and talk about this
Speaker 2: issue when it comes to the growing scarcity of water
Speaker 2: and in relation to how it correlates when it comes
Speaker 2: to climate change and then also global warming. So I
Speaker 2: want to get straight to our next guest, Jasper Munkholm,
Speaker 2: chief operating officer of Air to Water Company. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining us to start off, talk to
Speaker 2: us about your company and what you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, as Haarah is actually a company that has
Speaker 1: been formed back in twenty eighteen in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: And basically what we're doing is is generating water, drinking
Speaker 1: water out of the air. So that's that's basically what
Speaker 1: we're doing.
Speaker 3: Well, how I mean that sounds magical? What do you
Speaker 3: do to make that happens?
Speaker 1: So it's almost medic I know. But basically I think
Speaker 1: I think most of you know, you know, des humidify us.
Speaker 1: You always know you know, the your your automobile, you know,
Speaker 1: generating you know, getting water on the ground when you
Speaker 1: have you know, left the kind of summer. Basically, what
Speaker 1: what what is going on is that that we take
Speaker 1: we take we take air in and then we filter
Speaker 1: the air actually and then it goes into a condensation
Speaker 1: process with which is normally the process you see in dehumidifiers.
Speaker 1: And then of course if you look into dehumidifiers, that
Speaker 1: just dehumidifier takes out the water. But what we do
Speaker 1: is actually adding a few steps. So in those steps
Speaker 1: we had purification, mineralization, and then we add some UV
Speaker 1: lightning and then you can actually drink the water.
Speaker 3: So the water is yeah, well, I mean when I
Speaker 3: think about it, especially in a place in the Middle
Speaker 3: East right where there isn't very humid air all the time,
Speaker 3: it sounds like an expensive process. You know, what do
Speaker 3: you use to fuel that transition? And how much you know,
Speaker 3: does a cup of purified drinking water out of the
Speaker 3: air cost?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but actually since twenty eighteen, we have, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, made a tremendous effort in actually developing and
Speaker 1: innovating in the product. So now we actually basically able
Speaker 1: to compete directly, you know, head to head with bottle water,
Speaker 1: which is you know huge, you know, one point two
Speaker 1: million bottles of drinking water sold every minute globally, and
Speaker 1: it's not only in the Middle East, so you have
Speaker 1: humidities that are fluctuating. But we are also able to
Speaker 1: actually do the same in the US. So it's not
Speaker 1: only in the Middle East, it's actually Southeast Asia, it's
Speaker 1: many of the states in the US, it's on the
Speaker 1: African continent. And the more we put into the development
Speaker 1: and innovation of our products, we can go down in
Speaker 1: humidity level and generate still water even though that we
Speaker 1: have low temperatures down to seventeen degrees which around sixty
Speaker 1: two farnhead.
Speaker 3: So do you have I mean, is there a machine
Speaker 3: that's the size of a car or a briefcase? Is
Speaker 3: it a factory?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Is it diesel powered or solar like, I'm so fascinated
Speaker 3: by this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is me too. I'm totally fascinated by it
Speaker 1: because the first time you see one is just like, oh,
Speaker 1: where's the water inlet? You know, there's no water inlet? Okay,
Speaker 1: where does the water come from? Then? You know, can
Speaker 1: I drink it? And all that. So basically in our
Speaker 1: product range, you know, we have we have machines that
Speaker 1: can produce thousands of leaders today, which is big and
Speaker 1: huge and for industrial purpose or maybe even bottling plants
Speaker 1: that we are we are now going to you know,
Speaker 1: install at Hilton's and some of the big hotel resource
Speaker 1: in in the Middle East. But we are also launching
Speaker 1: next year, we are launching the very first one on
Speaker 1: the you know kitchens. Count it up so imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: a high a f ryer, and that high A f
Speaker 1: fryer is sexually generating enough water for you and your
Speaker 1: wife for you know, per day out of the air.
Speaker 1: So basically our product range is everything from five litera
Speaker 1: up to thousands and one hundred thousands of litera. If
Speaker 1: you want to run, how we power it? Okay, you
Speaker 1: can plug it in, but you also have options to
Speaker 1: sol up powered. So it's actually full circle on the
Speaker 1: water generation and that gives us a huge advantage that
Speaker 1: you know, we have waited quite a long time you
Speaker 1: know to get you know, really really into the marketing
Speaker 1: communication around this. We have focused on the products and
Speaker 1: actually building up a customer base.
Speaker 2: And Air to Water is actually in the process of
Speaker 2: going public on the New York Stock Exchange via a merger.
Speaker 2: Talk to us more about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we're planning in the beginning of twenty four
Speaker 1: so next year, so we're doing a lot of preparations now,
Speaker 1: and of course, you know, transforming and I would say
Speaker 1: also begins to disrupt you know, a whole industry. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a three hundred billion industry, the water bottling industry,
Speaker 1: so it's a huge industry. And to do that, we
Speaker 1: also need capital and do further investments because we want
Speaker 1: to be the drivers also in this old industry that's upcoming.
Speaker 1: So you could see atmospheric waters as as as a
Speaker 1: place of disruption within the water area. I worked in
Speaker 1: the water industry, biggest pump manufacturer in the world and
Speaker 1: so on, and this whole water industry is really really classic.
Speaker 1: And we also need to rethink how we're generating water
Speaker 1: because ninety seven percent of the water comes out to
Speaker 1: oud the ocean and it's and in many cases we
Speaker 1: also you know, desalinate the water, which is a condescent
Speaker 1: process and very high energy consumption process. So we need
Speaker 1: to think about where we also and and even you
Speaker 1: know in the groundwater. So we are draining our reservoirs
Speaker 1: all over the world, so where do we have water.
Speaker 1: We also have water in the air, so it's actually
Speaker 1: around us. We just need to put more money more
Speaker 1: capital and innovation into the products. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: our main purpose with the merger.
Speaker 3: And aspect, So Jasper, is this then a game changer
Speaker 3: in your mind? I mean, can you produce water from
Speaker 3: air at such scale that you know, we can use
Speaker 3: it for farming for example.
Speaker 1: It we basically can do that. The some of the
Speaker 1: challenges that we have, you know, as I mentioned before
Speaker 1: is of course you know the technology, but but right
Speaker 1: now we could basically set up you know, with an
Speaker 1: x amount of solar panel to containers and then we
Speaker 1: can actually begin to produce water. If the climate, humidity
Speaker 1: and temperature of course is there, then you can actually
Speaker 1: do that for agriculture also well companies. So it's continue
Speaker 1: so so so it's basically just a matter of you know,
Speaker 1: the purpose. We we are mainly focusing on the drinking
Speaker 1: water part because it has you know, if you look
Speaker 1: at it, just give you an example emergent markets. So
Speaker 1: in the emergent markets and the demand for drinking water
Speaker 1: will will always exceed the speed and pace you can
Speaker 1: do about building the classical water infrastructure and building pipes
Speaker 1: and infrastructure for drinking and drinking water is very very expensive.
Speaker 1: But if you can bypass that then you can actually
Speaker 1: also build infrastructure on a state label much much cheaper.
Speaker 1: And then that's that's the scale we are aiming for
Speaker 1: because we find this, you know, almost it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, a purpose. We have to do this because
Speaker 1: this is such an disruptive way of thinking about water.
Speaker 2: Who would you consider to be rivals in your space
Speaker 2: to your company?
Speaker 1: It is, of course, you know, the bottles, you know,
Speaker 1: the bottle of water. You know, that's that's of course rivals,
Speaker 1: but you could also you know, you could also see
Speaker 1: rivals coming up that are you know, it's a dispenser water.
Speaker 1: And it's also in many countries we see you know,
Speaker 1: there's also filtrations under the sink and so on. So
Speaker 1: so we have of course competitors, so to speak. But
Speaker 1: but we are now right now smack in the middle
Speaker 1: of disruption of the drinking water industry in general, and
Speaker 1: when it.
Speaker 2: Comes to these types of emerging technologies. We only have
Speaker 2: a little bit about a minute left here, but I mean,
Speaker 2: pushing it forward, what do you kind of envision for
Speaker 2: your company moving forward? Because we talked about obviously working
Speaker 2: to go public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, you know you also briefly touched upon it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's far as it's scaling, because if
Speaker 1: we can if we can scale this, you know, both
Speaker 1: in the US, not only in the middlest East, but
Speaker 1: US the African continent and southeast days. If we can
Speaker 1: scale this at large, we can actually help quite a lot,
Speaker 1: not only on the whole water journey or the impact
Speaker 1: journey of water bottles, but also to support people with
Speaker 1: that technology in areas where scarcity is super super stressed
Speaker 1: or the water is super super stressed. And also we
Speaker 1: are looking into collaborations with NGOs and so on. So
Speaker 1: the more technology and the more innovation we can build,
Speaker 1: the more we can actually help this problem which is
Speaker 1: only going to be bigger.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for joining us. That's Jessper Mounkholm,
Speaker 2: chief operating officer of Air to Water Company, talking to
Speaker 2: us about the growing scarcity of water, which is obviously
Speaker 2: a big key issue, right Matt, and especially when we're
Speaker 2: thinking about how that relates when we're talking about climate
Speaker 2: change as well as global warming