Exclusive: Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it

by with No Comment Tech

Farmers walk through a field being irrigated.

Image Credits: ridvan_celik / Getty Images

When people think about the water they use, they tend to think about drinking water out of the tap or maybe their daily shower. But about 70% of the water we use goes toward growing the crops that feed us, a number that swells to as high as 90% in low-income countries. Finding water for other uses can be a tough row to hoe.

In many areas, though, farmers are incentivized to use as much water as they think they need, even in excess to ensure a successful crop. “Governments want to produce their own food. They don’t want water to be expensive,” Jairo Trad, co-founder and CEO of Kilimo, told TechCrunch.

“But if farmers under-irrigate, there’s a huge risk of losing production and losing money and losing more food,” he added. “There’s an imbalance in the risk.”

Cheap irrigation has transformed many regions around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means that there can be little left for other uses.

For companies, water shortages can be an existential threat. “If you have a $200 million bottling plant and you don’t have water next week, there’s a lot of money at risk,” Trad said. “So we started talking with people and trying to put a value on water.”

What Trad and his colleagues at Kilimo devised can best be thought of as a risk management tool. So far, the company has taken around 100,000 soil samples across 45 different crop types in a number of different countries, mostly in South America. From there, it uses those samples to connect soil moisture to satellite imagery of farm fields, which is far easier to acquire. 

“You have to sit close to the ground to understand how things behave in that specific soil in that specific country,” Trad said.

Kilimo can then remotely monitor farm fields and advise farmers on their water use. It charges farmers a fee for the service, and if they’re able to successfully cut their water use, Kilimo can sell the surplus water to a company that needs it in the same watershed, sharing a portion of the proceeds with the farmer. In the end, farmers that trim their water use end up netting 20% to 40% more than they paid Kilimo. Everything is verified by third parties following the Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting standard.

Though the startup has been around for about a decade, it’s working to expand its operations as water scarcity rises to the top of executives’ lists of concerns. It currently works throughout South America, including in Argentina, where it is based, and Mexico. Next up is the Southwestern United States and Europe. To support the growth, Kilimo recently raised a $7.5 million Series A, the company exclusively shared with TechCrunch. The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures with participation from iThink VC, Kamay Ventures, Salkantay Ventures and the Yield Lab Latam.

Kilimo is working with Microsoft, Intel and Coca-Cola, all of which have announced water pledges. (Data centers are large water consumers, as are beverages.) Trad hopes to sign more. “Each company alone is not going to make a difference. But if you can leverage corporations plus government plus development bank entities, there you start making a difference,” he said.

Starpath accelerates moon water mining plans with $12M in funding

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Starpath Robotics (opens in a new window)

NASA and the space industry are in agreement: If we want to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, we’ll need to make use of every native resource we can — and none are as important as water ice. 

Starpath Robotics is one of a handful of startups planning for this future. The startup is betting that there will be a thriving market for liquid oxygen (LOX) refined from lunar water ice and that harvesting this resource will be key to humanity’s expansion throughout the solar system. LOX is a crucial component of propellant for some vehicles like rockets and spacecraft like lunar landers, and it’s used as the oxidizer alongside a combustible fuel such as hydrogen, kerosene, or methane.

The company came out of stealth last September with an ambitious water-harvesting architecture, involving mining rovers, refineries and LOX storage systems. Starpath wants to launch a demo mission “as quickly as we possibly can,” CEO Saurav Shroff said in a recent interview. To ensure the hardware will be ready whenever a launch vehicle is available, the company announced today that it has closed a $12 million seed round, co-led by 8VC and Fusion Fund, with participation from Day One Ventures, Balerion Space, and Indicator Ventures.

Much of the architecture has remained the same since Starpath originally unveiled its plans last year: Essentially, the company wants to use fleets of mining rovers that dig up hundreds of tons of lunar dirt and return it to autonomous lunar processing plans that extract the water, splits those molecules into their constituent atoms, and then liquifies the oxygen. The entire system would be powered by a massive solar array that’s being designed in collaboration with space solar startup Solestial.

There are some changes, however. Shroff said the 10-person team has made improvements on the mining rover hardware such that it will take far fewer rovers to produce a 1,000-ton annual harvesting scale (the company originally estimated it would take 50 rovers to hit that rate). Rover development also got a boost with $800,000 in NASA grants, as part of the space agency’s Break the Ice challenge to private industry. There is still much to develop, including the solar array and refineries, but the basic architecture is essentially planned out. With that in place, the company’s been turning its attention to the final interaction between its hardware and the customer’s vehicle. 

Figuring this out means solving a few problems, namely how to transport the LOX to the vehicle, which could be some distance away. The other problem, of course, is how to actually load the vehicle with the product. 

For the first issue, Shroff says the company is simply configuring its dirt-hauling rover to carry pressurized cryogenic propellant tanks instead. For the second, while he declined to go into specifics, he said the rover would be equipped with a specialized refueling instrument, that in all likelihood will be designed on a customer-by-customer basis. 

As of right now, there are few prospective customers for lunar LOX, but those that are planning moon missions could prove to be prolific buyers. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have contracts with NASA to land on the moon before the end of the decade; Shroff estimates that Starship would consume around 100-300 tons of oxygen on the moon per flight, and something like Blue Origin’s Blue Moon would consume tens of tons of oxygen per flight. 

Given that Starpath is aiming to produce around 1,000 tons of LOX per year, regular Starship flights to and from the lunar surface alone could be enough demand to support this production capacity. At that rate, Shroff says, any operator would be able to fly a vehicle to the moon and trust they will be able to refuel it while they’re there. 

By the end of this year, the company is aiming to conduct an end-to-end, full-scale demonstration of its system in a simulated lunar environment, which they’ll build out at their 12,000-square-foot premises. After that, they’ll embark on a series of test campaigns before launching their first demonstration mission. The goal for that first mission is to harvest the equivalent of around 100 tons of liquid oxygen per year. It’s incredibly ambitious: Scientists have confirmed that water ice is on the moon, but no government or company has ever harvested it, let alone refined it in situ.

Starpath is currently at 10 full-time employees, and the new capital will primarily go toward doubling or even tripling that number at a fast pace. The payoff for getting this technology online could be enormous, the company is betting, with the moon just the first stepping stone to expansion through the solar system. Starpath already has its eyes on developing processing plans and rover harvesting fleets for Mars, which would be augmented from their lunar counterparts, to convert CO2 in the Martian atmosphere into methane.

“Life can be multiplanetary in a very short period of time,” Shroff said. “If you make 1,000 tons of liquid oxygen on the moon, your path to making a million-person city on Mars is hard, but it’s now possible.” 

Exclusive: AI-powered water heater could banish cold showers and carbon pollution

by with No Comment Tech

Water running out of a shower head.

Image Credits: Imgorthand / Getty Images

Chances are you’ve been there: Your formerly hot shower suddenly turns cold, darkening your mood in the process. 

Maybe someone in your household took an extra shower or you did a few too many loads of laundry. It’s a classic case of supply not meeting demand. Michael Rigney thinks he can predict when a household will need more hot water, eliminating cold showers without turning to expensive alternatives like on-demand water heaters.

Rigney’s quest started a few years ago when he began researching water heating. What he saw “was really eye opening,” Rigney told TechCrunch in a recent interview. 

The basic technology behind most water heaters, whether they’re gas or electric, hasn’t changed much in several decades. They might be cheap to buy, but they’re not cheap to run.

Heat pump water heaters have started to change that for many homeowners, improving efficiency and lowering utility bills. But even there, “I saw a tremendous opportunity for improvement,” Rigney said. 

He founded Cala Systems in Boston in 2020 as heat pump water heaters were beginning to take off. Because of that shift, he said, “there was an entrepreneurial opportunity to build the best heat pump water heater.”

Water heaters tend to be fairly straightforward appliances: At their core, they have three basic parts: an insulated tank, a heating element and a thermostat. Most people set the temperature once and forget it; on rare occasions, they might set it a bit higher when overnight guests arrive. As hot water is drawn from the tank, cold water replaces it, driving down the temperature inside. When the temp gets low enough, the thermostat tells the heater to turn on.

“That’s really antiquated,” Rigney said. “We can do better in 2024.”

Cala Systems' heat pump water heater sits in a basement.
Cala Systems’ first product will be a 65-gallon heat pump water heater.
Image Credits: Cala Systems

Cala Systems’ water heater pairs an advanced heat pump with an AI-powered control system to forecast hot water demand and heat the water in the tank accordingly. The company gathers general information like weather forecasts and time-of-use energy pricing and sends it to the water heater. That data is then analyzed on the device along with household specific information, including water usage patterns, incoming cold water temperature, and whether the home has solar panels. (Rigney said the company will never sell household data.)

By analyzing water use patterns, the tank can anticipate when there will be a surge in demand and heat the water in the most efficient way possible.

For example, if the weather is predicting a handful of sunny days before a couple days of clouds, Cala’s algorithms might decide to use daytime power from a homeowner’s solar panels to overheat the tank. Then, when hot water is called for, it mixes it with cold water to cool down to the appropriate temperature. That allows the water heater to make the most of excess solar production, essentially turning the tank into a battery that stores energy for a cloudy day.

In other instances, when both weather and water demand are consistent, Cala’s water heater can slow down the speed of the compressor, lengthening the time it takes to heat the tank for an efficiency bump. “In water heating, when you slow down the compressor, you increase the efficiency of heat transfer by about 30%.” Rigney said. “It’s a pretty significant impact.”

And if there are house guests coming? Cala included a boost mode that people can activate on the tank or in an app.

Today, water heaters in the U.S. are split almost evenly between natural gas and electric resistance, with oil, propane and heat pumps rounding things out. Water heating is responsible for around 20% of the typical American household’s energy usage, and heat pump water heaters slash that significantly while also cutting people’s dependence on natural gas.

Heat pump water heaters may only make up a few percent of the market, but they are rapidly growing in share, helped in part by incentives within the Inflation Reduction Act. And while they’re more expensive to install up-front, they’re cheaper in the long run because they’re more efficient to operate, leading to lower household carbon emissions.

Rigney said that Cala will be buying parts from various suppliers and assembling the final product in the U.S. (“This is not a product that ships well,” he said with a laugh.) The company’s first product, a 65 gallon model, will cost $2,850; it’s available to pre-order with delivery sometime early next year. That’s about $800 more than competitors, though Rigney said that lower utility bills should eliminate that difference over time.

To support the rollout, Cala exclusively told TechCrunch that it has raised a $5.6 million seed round led by the Clean Energy Venture Group and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center with Burnt Island Ventures, CapeVista Capital, and Leap Forward Ventures participating. With so few heat pump water heaters sold to date, “this is a category that is truly nascent,” Rigney said. “We think there’s an opportunity here to redefine what people expect a water heater to do.”

Farmers walk through a field being irrigated.

Exclusive: Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it

by with No Comment Tech

Farmers walk through a field being irrigated.

Image Credits: ridvan_celik / Getty Images

When people think about the water they use, they tend to think about drinking water out of the tap or maybe their daily shower. But about 70% of the water we use goes toward growing the crops that feed us, a number that swells to as high as 90% in low-income countries. Finding water for other uses can be a tough row to hoe.

In many areas, though, farmers are incentivized to use as much water as they think they need, even in excess to ensure a successful crop. “Governments want to produce their own food. They don’t want water to be expensive,” Jairo Trad, co-founder and CEO of Kilimo, told TechCrunch.

“But if farmers under-irrigate, there’s a huge risk of losing production and losing money and losing more food,” he added. “There’s an imbalance in the risk.”

Cheap irrigation has transformed many regions around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means that there can be little left for other uses.

For companies, water shortages can be an existential threat. “If you have a $200 million bottling plant and you don’t have water next week, there’s a lot of money at risk,” Trad said. “So we started talking with people and trying to put a value on water.”

What Trad and his colleagues at Kilimo devised can best be thought of as a risk management tool. So far, the company has taken around 100,000 soil samples across 45 different crop types in a number of different countries, mostly in South America. From there, it uses those samples to connect soil moisture to satellite imagery of farm fields, which is far easier to acquire. 

“You have to sit close to the ground to understand how things behave in that specific soil in that specific country,” Trad said.

Kilimo can then remotely monitor farm fields and advise farmers on their water use. It charges farmers a fee for the service, and if they’re able to successfully cut their water use, Kilimo can sell the surplus water to a company that needs it in the same watershed, sharing a portion of the proceeds with the farmer. In the end, farmers that trim their water use end up netting 20% to 40% more than they paid Kilimo. Everything is verified by third parties following the Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting standard.

Though the startup has been around for about a decade, it’s working to expand its operations as water scarcity rises to the top of executives’ lists of concerns. It currently works throughout South America, including in Argentina, where it is based, and Mexico. Next up is the Southwestern United States and Europe. To support the growth, Kilimo recently raised a $7.5 million Series A, the company exclusively shared with TechCrunch. The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures with participation from iThink VC, Kamay Ventures, Salkantay Ventures and the Yield Lab Latam.

Kilimo is working with Microsoft, Intel and Coca-Cola, all of which have announced water pledges. (Data centers are large water consumers, as are beverages.) Trad hopes to sign more. “Each company alone is not going to make a difference. But if you can leverage corporations plus government plus development bank entities, there you start making a difference,” he said.

Exclusive: Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it

by with No Comment Tech

Farmers walk through a field being irrigated.

Image Credits: ridvan_celik / Getty Images

When people think about the water they use, they tend to think about drinking water out of the tap or maybe their daily shower. But about 70% of the water we use goes toward growing the crops that feed us, a number that swells to as high as 90% in low-income countries. Finding water for other uses can be a tough row to hoe.

In many areas, though, farmers are incentivized to use as much water as they think they need, even in excess to ensure a successful crop. “Governments want to produce their own food. They don’t want water to be expensive,” Jairo Trad, co-founder and CEO of Kilimo, told TechCrunch.

“But if farmers under-irrigate, there’s a huge risk of losing production and losing money and losing more food,” he added. “There’s an imbalance in the risk.”

Cheap irrigation has transformed many regions around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means that there can be little left for other uses.

For companies, water shortages can be an existential threat. “If you have a million $200 million bottling plant and you don’t have water next week, there’s a lot of money at risk,” Trad said. “So we started talking with people and trying to put a value on water.”

What Trad and his colleagues at Kilimo devised can best be thought of as a risk management tool. So far, the company has taken around 100,000 soil samples across 45 different crop types in a number of different countries, mostly in South America. From there, it uses those samples to connect soil moisture to satellite imagery of farm fields, which is far easier to acquire. 

“You have to sit close to the ground to understand how things behave in that specific soil in that specific country,” Trad said.

Kilimo can then remotely monitor farm fields and advise farmers on their water use. It charges farmers a fee for the service, and if they’re able to successfully cut their water use, Kilimo can sell the surplus water to a company that needs it in the same watershed, sharing a portion of the proceeds with the farmer. In the end, farmers that trim their water use end up netting 20% to 40% more than they paid Kilimo. Everything is verified by third parties following the Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting standard.

Though the startup has been around for about a decade, it’s working to expand its operations as water scarcity rises to the top of executives’ lists of concerns. It currently works throughout South America, including in Argentina, where it is based, and Mexico. Next up is the Southwestern United States and Europe. To support the growth, Kilimo recently raised a $7.5 million Series A, the company exclusively shared with TechCrunch. The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures with participation from iThink VC, Kamay Ventures, Salkantay Ventures and The Yield Lab Latam.

Kilimo is working with Microsoft, Intel and Coca-Cola, all of which have announced water pledges. (Data centers are large water consumers, as are beverages.) Trad hopes to sign more. “Each company alone is not going to make a difference. But if you can leverage corporations plus government plus development bank entities, there you start making a difference,” he said.

a photo of Southern Water's cyber attack page on its website

UK utility giant Southern Water says hackers stole personal data of hundreds of thousands of customers

by with No Comment Tech

a photo of Southern Water's cyber attack page on its website

Image Credits: TechCrunch / PhotoMosh

U.K.-based water utility Southern Water has confirmed that hackers stole the personal data of as many as 470,000 customers in a recent data breach.

Southern Water, which provides water and wastewater services to millions of people across the South East of England, said in a statement on Tuesday that it plans to notify “5 to 10 percent” of its customer base that they had personal information stolen by hackers during a cyberattack in January.

The utility giant declined to say exactly how many individuals are so far affected. Simon Fluendy, a spokesperson for Southern Water, told TechCrunch that the company has approximately 4.7 million customers, and did not dispute that between 235,000 and 470,000 customers had data stolen.

Southern Water notes that the “5 to 10 percent” figure is based on its ongoing forensic investigations, suggesting the actual number of individuals affected could be higher.

Southern Water declined to say what data was stolen. BBC News reports that hackers accessed customers’ dates of birth, national insurance numbers, bank account details and reference numbers.

Southern Water said it also planned to notify “all of our current employees and some former employees” about the breach of their personal information. In its latest annual report, Southern Water says it has approximately 6,000 employees.

The January cyberattack on Southern Water, which the company first disclosed on January 23, was claimed by the Black Basta ransomware group, a Russia-linked gang that last year took responsibility for a hack on U.K. outsourcing giant Capita.

Southern Water has not yet commented on the specifics of the incident or how its systems were compromised.

Black Basta listed Southern Water on its dark web leak site soon after the cyberattack last month and claimed to have stolen 750 gigabytes of sensitive data from the organization, including corporate documents and customers’ personal documents.

The listing, which threatened to publish the stolen data unless a ransom demand was paid, also included screenshots claiming to show some of the data stolen, including employee passports and identity cards.

At the time of writing, Southern Water is no longer listed on Black Basta’s website. It’s not uncommon for victim companies who pay a ransom to the hackers to have their public listings removed. Southern Water declined to say whether it had paid a ransom demand.

In its statement published on Tuesday, Southern Water says it is working with cybersecurity experts to monitor the dark web. Since the utility’s listing on the ransomware gang’s site, Southern Water says it has “found no new evidence of the data potentially involved in this cyber incident being published online.”

Southern Water says it has notified the U.K.’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, about the incident.

ICO confirms data breach probe as UK councils remain downed by cyberattack