WEGoT, an IoT-based start-up delivering water management solutions, today announced a round of strategic funding of $1.5 M. The strategic round was led by GRUHAS Proptech (promoted by Abhijeet Pai of Puzzolana Group and Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha), Rahul Talwar – DLF Family Office, Harshad Reddy – Apollo Hospitals Family. The round also saw participation from WEGoT’s existing investors like HDFC Capital Advisory Ltd and the promoters and CEO of Prestige Group.
With the fundraise, WEGoT aims to strengthen its squad, expand its footprint Pan-India, and enhance existing product capabilities. The company is looking to grow its team by recruiting across all functions to deliver this critical urban intervention at scale. Since its inception, WEGoT has successfully implemented over 1 lakh smart devices across 30,000+ homes and over 40 million sq. ft of commercial real estate and has the visibility to scale to 10 lakh devices in the next 12 months. The company has effectively conserved over 3 billion litres of water till date and pledges to further save 10 billion litres of water in 2022.
“Sustainability is not merely an ideology anymore. According to the United Nations, half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by 2025 and over 2 billion already live in countries where water supply is inadequate. Our IoT based water management has paved the way for managing and mitigating the growing crisis. Measured usage drives the awareness and has garnered the attention of multiple stakeholders in this eco-system and it is gratifying to see inbound interest, both domestic and overseas, from developers and utilities. With this fundraise, we will scale our tech stack that will help to further decrease the demand for water in buildings” said Vijay Krishna, CTO and Co-Founder of WEGoT.
“We are extremely fortunate to have raised capital from such industry leaders, who believe and support our vision for WEGoT. Coupled with their support and an easy to adopt solution, we are now poised for non-linear growth by delivering our solution in cities across India and substantially reducing their demand for water. We aim to help 1 million homes reduce their demand for water in the near term.” said Abilash Haridass, Co-Founder & CEO, WEGoT Utility Solutions. “Over the years, we have witnessed that the perspective of leading commercial and residential real estate developers has evolved. They have realized the true potential of technology; and how it can ensure natural resources, such as water, when utilized efficiently, can help to reduce their operational cost and boost the bottom line.” added Abilash.
In a short time, WEGoT has gained the trust and collaborated with industry mammoths. Their key clientele includes Prestige Group, Godrej Properties, Brigade Group Mahindra World City, and Brookfield among others.
Speaking on the occasion, Abhijeet Pai of Gruhas Proptech, added, “With ESG taking centre stage in the global context, WEGoT’s impressive technology with proven results holds a lot of promise in addressing the water crisis in the country. We are pleased to partner with WEGoT in their growth phase and happy to support them in their vision to conserve water using technology.”
Ashutosh Mayank, Head of Digital & Innovation – HDFC Capital Advisors Limited, said: “HDFC Capital Advisors Ltd focuses on enabling sustainable development of the affordable housing ecosystem in India. Our investment in WEGoT in 2019 and in subsequent rounds is an affirmation of our thesis on funding technology and ESG focussed companies. Through our H@ART initiative, we aim to partner with startups like WEGoT that promote sustainability and technology in the real estate ecosystem
Venkat K Narayana, CEO Prestige Estates said, “Sustainability tech will grow bigger and see more adaptors in the coming years since India is already struggling to meet the demand for water. The need as well as the use of this technology in real estate has burgeoned. We as users and investors of the solution, are aligned with WEGoT in achieving the vision of water conservation across the country”
