The people behind Nebia — the showerhead tech startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and a host of other big names — sold to Mark Cuban’s Brondellwhich manufactures bidets, air purifiers and others.
The name Nebia and water-saving nozzles live of following the deal, co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon said on a call with TechCrunch. Despite my nudge, the pair refused to say what Brondell paid to reclaim the brand, which launched on Kickstarter eons ago (in 2015). If you know the terms of the deal, wouldn’t it be cool if you beat me?
Alongside Cook and a host of early Kickstarter supporters, Nebia raised funds from the family office of former Google boss Eric Schmidt, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Fitbit co-founder James Park, Y-Combinator, Stanford – should I continue?
Nebia stood out when it launched with expensive nozzles that blasted users with a fine, hurricane-like mist, while retaining up to 70% of the water a typical showerhead sprays in the process, claimed the startup. It turned out to be polarizing; The exuberant storm of Nebia has conquered yours truly, but divided a newsroom with his unconventional take on a beloved ritual. Over the years, Nebia has scaled things down to win more customers, reducing its projected water savings to around 50% in the process.
During its time as an independent company, Nebia estimated that its customers conserved more than “500 million gallons of water”, as well as “the equivalent of more than 27 million kWh (27 GWh) of energy “. The company said the energy savings were “roughly equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 2,700 US homes.” Winter told TechCrunch that Nebia’s products, including those made with Moen, have reached more than 100,000 homes.
“I am currently working on future products [at Brondell]”, says Parisi-Amon -“those that are directly related to what we’ve done before, and those that are completely different, but still can apply the materials we’ve worked on and the analysis we’ve worked on.”
Winter and the rest of Nebia’s 15-person team also joined Brondell, the co-founders said.
The two leaders stressed that they are still committed to helping people conserve water – an essential task as climate change causes droughts.
“That’s why we started and that’s why I, at the time, left Apple,” Parisi-Amon said. “I wanted to use my mechanical engineering degree to make a product that anyone could trade for what they had, and that would be better for the environment,” Parisi-Amon added. “And that job is not done.”
Winter said as much as our call ended earlier this week. “As the population increases, and we use more water per capita, and we have more frequent droughts and more severe droughts, the equation is not very positive,” Winter said. “We need to find ways to use water more efficiently.”
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