Do you have your Meet the Drapers recap transcript?

Clare Sewell:    I'm a little bit nervous. Yeah, I've never been in a studio audience before, but it'll be really nice to meet the Drapers. From what we've seen today, they've given good feedback to people. I think that'll be nice. This is quite a new venture.

Beth Koigi:    Yeah, and it's the first time to get our idea out there to people. Yeah, we are pretty excited at the same time.

Clare Sewell:    Yeah.

Beth Koigi:    I'm Beth, a co-founder at Majik and the CEO. A while back, I started a water filtration business in Kenya, and like many of the organization, we found a program that we were trying to solve. 783 million people around the world do not have access to clean water. Like many other organization working on this, the statistics is changing. In fact, they were growing more and more. Especially in terms of drought, and we found a very big linkage between water contamination and water shortage. With the well drying up, and the water tables coming down, there is higher concentration of sodium chloride and arsenic. We started looking at different other sources of clean drinking water.

Clare Sewell:    Great. I'm Clare. I'm a co-founder and COO at Majik Water. We started looking at where else does clean water exist in the world. We came across the fact, which I found quite staggering, which is there's actually six times more water in the air than there is in all of the rivers in the world. That's a great source of clean fresh drinking water that we're not really using at the moment.

    We looked at how we could harness that, particularly for people living in areas like we just showed you, where there's no electricity, and you've got to create something that works for that environment. We came across something called desiccant materials. These are sponge-like materials, which have a high affinity for water and attract water. Then you can release it by heating. We tested that in a lab, it worked. Then we built this proof of concept. We hacked together some existing technology, a desiccant dehumidifier, a solar array, and a filter. For $700, we can create 10 liters of water every 24 hours. Our next step is the next prototype to bring that cost down a lot.

Beth Koigi:    The UN estimate-

Bill Draper:    Wait, 10 inches, and how wide?

Clare Sewell:    Sorry, 10 liters, 10 liters cubic.

Bill Draper:    Oh, 10 liters.

Clare Sewell:    Yes. Yeah.

Beth Koigi:    The UN estimate that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in water striked areas. At Majik, we are committed to making this statistic not to be. If you'll have air, you'll have clean drinking water.

Bill Draper:    How did you meet each other?

Clare Sewell:    We met at Singularity University. We've been doing a global solutions program since June.

Tim Draper:    Let me get this straight. There is a device that just sucks air in and captures the water and holds it. Is it a fan, or is it just like a-

Naveen Jain:    Metamaterial. There are a hundred and-

Tim Draper:    It's a what?

Naveen Jain:    Metamaterial, and so there are probably 150 companies that I know that do that today. In fact, there is a water XPRIZE. There are about 150 company that are currently competing. This is an extremely crowded market.

Clare Sewell:    Yeah, and you're absolutely right. We have seen a tipping point on this. Our other team member, Anastasia, the CTO, she's actually involved in one of the XPRIZE water teams, using a slightly different technology. What we are looking at is doing something that works both on the technology side, but also on the business model, really rural villages creating 2,000 liters of water per day. We're looking at something that can be hopefully distributed a lot more quickly, and we're looking at distribution partners and angles to do that, to create something that can quickly scale out to the people who really need it.

Naveen Jain:    This is a business model company rather than a technical company?

Clare Sewell:    Yeah.

Bill Draper:    Who is going to pay for this?

Beth Koigi:    We are producing a device that can be used at a household table, but we are trying to look at if we can build something for community level, where we product not less than 100 liters per day. People pay per liter.

Tim Draper:    It's individual consumers that are going to pay per liter, and so communities will buy this machine, and then selling it.

Naveen Jain:    Then sell the water.

Tim Draper:    Selling water.

Clare Sewell:    Yeah.

Tim Draper:    This is a very, very crowded market, both in the small scale, and the big scale.

Jesse Draper:    Right. No, I completely agree with you Naveen, but we need water. They need water. I'm glad 150 companies are working on this. You guys, are you trying to differentiate yourselves by only going after Africa to start?

Beth Koigi:    Right now, and you're correct, there are so many companies doing this. Right now, our market segment is low humidity. That is 30% relative humidity. Most of these technologies work in 60% relative humidity. Most people are doing dew harvesting, fog harvesting, or harvesting water from very high humidity, but we are looking at desert, basically arid areas.

Bill Draper:    I ran the United Nations Development Program, UNDP. We drilled a lot of wells. Are you saying there isn't water under the ground?

Beth Koigi:    There is water, but if you look at the case of East Africa, there is a lot of sodium chloride and a lot of arsenic due to the borehole water dropping so low. There is high concentration of heavy metals and excess minerals. This has created stunted growth, the bones are breaking easily. There is a lot of challenges associated with that. Boiling water won't solve anything. Removing bacteria won't solve anything unless you do desalination, one, which is very expensive right now.

Clare Sewell:    The other thing that we're looking at though is the projections on water shortage. There are wells that are being drilled today, which are running out of water, because the ground level, the groundwater levels are dropping so much. Actually, when you look at the UN statistics about how much that problem is going to grow in the world, it's really scary. By 2025, they say 1.8 billion people will be in water scarce areas. They say around 4 billion people will be experiencing at least a few months of water shortage every year. This is a problem that is going to grow, just scarily big. That is why we want to have something that works to create water from the air to pre-solve the problem of not having enough water to the ground.

Bill Draper:    You're pretty sure that people will line up and pay per liter?

Clare Sewell:    Yeah, and it surely happens a lot in Kenya. Beth can talk to this better.

Beth Koigi:    We call them water kiosk. They're like water shop, where people go and buy water. Most of these are build around a borehole, which is mostly not purified. We are setting up the same set up, but where you get clean water from that, and actually cost will be a bit cheaper than that.

Tim Draper:    Where did you learn about water and the water shortages around the world?

Beth Koigi:    I started a water filtration business in Kenya, because I was personally affected. I couldn't afford the filters in the market then, so I started making my own filters. People got interested, and they started buying. This year, we experienced a very long drought from January to around August, and that made me realize even if you have a filter, there is nothing to filter. That made me start thinking, what do other people do?

Tim Draper:    Do you have problems when you start talking to the investors that they get thirsty.

Clare Sewell:    It's hot in here.

Tim Draper:    A liter of water through your system, what's the cost of that versus a liter of water coming out of the ground?

Clare Sewell:    A liter of water is five cents per liter every five year ownership period. It need to get down to one cent ber liter. If you're buying from a rainwater harvesting equipment, that works out at about six cents per liter.

Bill Draper:    How long does it take you to pay for the equipment?

Clare Sewell:    At the moment, we're looking at a hybrid model, so getting the government or NGO down payment to cover about 60% to 70% of the machine cost.

Bill Draper:    It's NGOs that is going to finance this.

Clare Sewell:    Then a pay-as-you-go from the customers.

Tim Draper:    Have you considered Xerox model? You actually put the thing out there, charge per liter of water, and you own the machine.

Clare Sewell:    That is definitely an option. In terms of access to enough capital to be able to scale quickly to do that, because obviously, the cash flow on that is going to be a long payback period.

Bill Draper:    Have either of you run anything? Have you ever ... Starting in college or where ... Have you run a-

Clare Sewell:    A business?

Bill Draper:    Business ... Not necessarily a business, but something?

Clare Sewell:    Yeah.

Bill Draper:    I wanted to look into your leadership skills.

Beth Koigi:    I have a bachelor's degree in community development, a master's in project planning and management, but I also started a business in Kenya, water filtration business, which I ran for five years. I found I wasn't doing much. I was just being a normal company, selling water filtration. I was also impact-oriented.

Bill Draper:    You?

Clare Sewell:    I studied economics and management at Oxford, and then I actually worked in a city doing strategy consulting in London, and then our-

Tim Draper:    Terrific. Now, we don't have any more time for our questions, but we do have time for our questions from in the audience.

Jesse Draper:    I know you have questions. We all drink water. In the back row.

Clare Sewell:    Actually, the beauty of us doing something that's more at a household or 100-liter community level is that could be shipped quite easily in a disaster scenario, and actually go to the people who need it quite quickly. I think longer term, once we've got it up and running, that would be something we would love to help with.

Naveen Jain:    What's the cost per unit?

Clare Sewell:    At the moment, our-

Naveen Jain:    The 100-liter one.

Clare Sewell:    The 100-liter one, I've done a very bearish set of assumptions, based on the worst requirements in terms of solar PV, and we'll be looking at about $2,300 per unit.

Tim Draper:    That would generate how much money and water per month? Is it a month?

Clare Sewell:    Yes, so it'll be 100 liters per days, so if you're looking the one to two cents pay-as-you-go charge, that's $1 to $2 a day, and then whatever timeframe you want to look at.

Tim Draper:    It's got to be 2,300 days to pay back.

Clare Sewell:    Which is why we were looking at the possible NGO government down payment.

Jesse Draper:    What are you raising?

Clare Sewell:    At the moment, we're looking for $420,000 to get us through the next stage of prototyping.

Jesse Draper:    At what valuation?

Clare Sewell:    We're very early stage, so we're looking at putting in place a convertible note.

Tim Draper:    Great. Thank you so much for coming in to Meet the Drapers.

Jesse Draper:    Thank you so much. This is awesome.

Clare Sewell:    Thank you. Great to meet all of you.

Bill Draper:    Good job. Good luck to you.

Clare Sewell:    It was good. They asked lots of really clever questions. It was nice getting the chance to speak to them.

Beth Koigi:    This was an amazing experience, because once we started talking, we got them excited, and they started asking us all these questions. It made us feel they're really, really interested.

Clare Sewell:    Yeah, and I think it's a problem that's really, really important. That's why we're building this business. We could've gone on talking for hours. The slides and the presentation behind us messed up a little bit, so that looked quite ugly. That would be, I think, number one thing to change.

Beth Koigi:    I don't have regrets, totally. I really liked our presentation. I think we answered questions really well.

Clare Sewell:    I think they agreed with us that the problem is a big one, and we could see ... I mean, Bill used to head up UNDP, so he's been working on these issues for decades. I think they really resonated with that, which was fabulous.

Beth Koigi:    Yeah.

Clare Sewell:    Now we just need some nice funds from the crowd please.

Bill Draper:    I think they're trying to do something very important, but they're trying to do something important with a new twist. Getting water from above rather than below, so I would like to back them. Frankly, as an investor who's looking for a return, I probably wouldn't do it.

Tim Draper:    Well, no. 2,300 days to get your money back, it's a long way to go. I like the CEO and the fact that she had been selling water in the street for quite a while. That's a nice way to start.

Bill Draper:    I like them very much.

Tim Draper:    I like that. I thought that was terrific.

Jesse Draper:    Yeah. I mean-

Naveen Jain:    I-

Jesse Draper:    Yeah. No, you go ahead.

Naveen Jain:    No, you go ahead, Jesse.

Jesse Draper:    No, you've been drinking water longer than I have.

Naveen Jain:    Oh.

Tim Draper:    Ouch.

Naveen Jain:    Okay.

Tim Draper:    Good comment. Go ahead. Guest first.

Naveen Jain:    I think it's a problem worth solving. The thing that I had a little trouble with is that they really have no IP. It's not they have any intellectual property of any kind, and they're just simply thinking that their business model of partnering with NGOs is going to get them there. To me, if you're relying on the nonprofit to make your profitable, that's a pretty tough market.

Jesse Draper:    It feels like maybe it could be more of a nonprofit of sort.

Naveen Jain:    Jesse, you can always support them. You have plenty of money.

Tim Draper:    Hey, she struggled. She got that fund raised. I don't think she wants to put it out. She wants to put it out pretty carefully.

Jesse Draper:    I have to be very careful.

Tim Draper:    Anyway, that was great. Okay, so thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs all around, which way are you going? There you have it.

Jesse Draper:    I really like them.

Tim Draper:    Me too.

Naveen Jain:    Aww.

Jesse Draper:    This is your opportunity. If you want to help support the water ecosystem, invest in Majik Water or vote, this is your chance. Preferably, vote or invest in the next 48 hours, and you can help this company get off the ground.