Founder's Story
Shashank Varma — Founder & CEO
"The reason I care about water isn't engineering. It's them."
Most of us assume the water in our homes is safe—until we have a reason to look closer.
Around the time my wife and I decided to start a family, I was asked to help build a new water filtration business at Kohler, after years designing faucets and water systems. I had always perceived our water in the US to be "basically safe" and didn't really see danger beyond viruses and bacteria in our water.
Until I did.
Two years later, my wife and I were still trying to conceive. For completely unrelated reasons, I had our tap water tested — I was interested in exploring the whole home category for my job. What came back shocked us: pharmaceuticals in our water, including birth control medications.
That same weekend, I installed one of my own designed RO units that I was about to launch. About a year later, my wife was pregnant.
I won't claim a direct causal relationship here because there are too many variables involved. But that experience permanently changed how I see water.
It became obvious that our problem with water is not bacteria or viruses, but synthetic chemicals.
These chemicals are about 60-70 years old and have been accumulating in our water for decades. Our municipalities, also about the same age, were never designed for PFAS, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals. And now, thanks to advances in medical technology, we are learning that even trace amounts of these contaminants are wreaking havoc on our health.
I learned that meeting EPA legal limits does not mean the water is safe for health.
EPA standards are developed through compromises between lobbying corporations and lawsuits by concerned organizations and citizens; cost and money end up driving the legal standards, not health.
Municipal water systems are designed to prevent immediate harm. They're not designed around long-term health.
My home water test experience, my conversations with folks on my blog (mrwatergeek.com) and the almost decade in the fixture industry - led me to this key insight: the kitchen faucet is already a health device. It just has never been designed like one.
We're not building a better water filter. We're building the first health device that's already installed in every home.
