The lack of clean water availability in India is one of the many growing concerns that need to be addressed. For most of us living in cities away from home due to studies or work have at least once faced the problem of getting access to clean drinking water on a regular basis.
Puja Tiwari, Co-founder, Neerwalla [Image Credit: Neerwalla]
Entrepreneurs Puja Tiwari and Deepak D are doing their bit to provide a solution to this problem. Puja launched Neerwalla in July 2020 to provide water requirement solutions. The Bengaluru-based startup connects users with nearby water vendors for online orders and delivery of water bottles, cans, and tankers using its mobile application. Deepak who met Puja through business connections joined the startup as the co-founder later after the application was developed.
“Neerwalla is a hyper-local water solution startup that works with the live location. We faced many issues with vendors in our area while searching and booking water tankers. There was no other way to search for them except for Google, but still there were not many details related to booking it. This made us think about coming up with a solution to fill this gap and get a hyper-local application,” Puja tells YS.
[Image Credit: Play Store]
Closing gap between vendor and customer
A serial entrepreneur, Puja explains the startup is looking to position itself as a one-stop solution for one’s water requirement. It connects the users to nearby vendors, allowing them to not only order online but also track their delivery.
The co-founder clarifies that while Neerwalla enables users to track the delivery using the mobile app, the delivery personnel belong to the vendors.
She claims the startup onboards clients providing only ISI-certified water to ensure its hygiene and safety.
The startup mainly targets users from commercial and residential buildings and also events happening across the city.
“We are still a little away from completing our first financial year, and we are almost reaching our break-even point. We are targeting to increase our partner vendors by 10X and delivery count by 15X by 2021 financial year-end,” she claims.
The Neerwalla team currently has seven permanent and two freelancing members. The ground team meets with the vendors and onboards them onto the platform after ensuring quality checks.
Neerwalla, with multiple vendors listed on its platform, allows users to connect with anyone, anytime for their water requirements, thereby eliminating the need to depend on one water vendor.
Illustration: YS Design
Business and more
Neerwalla operates on a commission model on each delivery from the vendors. The startup charges 10 percent on the orders.
“On an average, we are recording 3,000 to 4,000 deliveries per month and have around 500 vendors listed with us,” Puja says.
She reveals the bootstrapped startup was launched with an initial investment of Rs 10 lakh. She also adds that the startup is looking for seed funding opportunities to scale up the business.
According to a report by the Trade Promotion Council of India, the packaged drinking water bottle market in India is expected to reach $60.06 billion by end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of 20.75 percent.
The startup competes with other notable players such as Just Pani, Tankerwala, Bookmycan, and Bringjal, among others.
Speaking about future plans, Puja reveals that Neerwalla is looking to expand its business to other cities like Chennai and Hyderabad by 2022 and in Delhi-NCR by 2023.
