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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

water bottle

LARQ Raises $10M for its UV-Light, Germ-Killing Re-Useabale Water Vessels

LARQ, which makes germ-killing, reuseable hydration products, announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Seventure with participation from DCM.

Launched in 2018, LARQ’s first product was a reusable water bottle. What makes LARQ different from other reusable water bottles on the market is the built in UV-C light inside the container. Push a button and the light turns on for 60 seconds, which according to the company is enough to neutralize up to 99.9999 percent of harmful bacteria and viruses. The interior surface of the LARQ also has a special optical coating to reflect the light for maximum efficacy. The UV light used does not contain mercury.

With its new money, the California-based LARQ plans to expand internationally and into new product categories. Earlier this month, the company launched its new water pitcher on Kickstarter (where it blew past its $50,000 goal to raise more than $674,000 dollars). In addition to the UV light, the LARQ pitcher also features a plant-based carbon filter that the company says uses 75 percent less plastic than other water filter pitchers.

LARQ’s bottles and pitcher are certainly arriving at the right time for a number of reasons. Plastic waste remains a huge problem for our planet. More than 8 million metric tons of plastic waste wind up in our oceans each year, and that stat was prior to the COVID pandemic. Since the pandemic hit the problem has only gotten worse with the surge in single-use items like gloves, masks and food containers. Oh, and then there’s the recent reveal that we were misled about plastic’s ability to be recycled in the first place.

Speaking of COVID, given how the pandemic continues to run its course around the U.S. and internationally, people have a more heightened sense of the germs they are exposed to. Having a reusable water bottle that reduces plastic waste and cleans itself seems to the right idea at the right time (though it doesn’t appear that LARQ makes any specific claims about COVID-19).

According to the press release, LARQ sold more than 75,000 units in 2019. LARQ bottles sell for $78 a pop, and are available online and through a number of retail partners like Nordstrom and Bloomingdales.


Fancy Countertop Water Machines Are Not the Solution to the Bottled Water Crisis

Single-use plastics are a threat to the world, and a large contributor of that waste is bottled water. The segment, led by food conglomerates including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle, is a huge business, pulling in $16 billion in 2016 in the U.S.

It makes sense then that startups and other companies are now introducing alternatives to bottled water to prevent more plastics from entering landfills and oceans. These alternatives take the form of countertop water filters, and there’s no shortage of them. Coming soon to the market are Lang’s All-in-One Drinks System, the Rocean One and Mitte.

All offer similar features: they filter water, of course, but also carbonate or mineralize it. Lang and Rocean also offer flavoring packs. All the machines are smart, reminding users when to replace the filters, carbon and mineral cartridges and flavoring packs. They also come at a high price, with Lang costing about $555, Mitte coming in at $529 and Rocean $349. Amazingly, there are waitlists for all three devices (the later two were successfully crowdfunded).

While these companies’ goals are laudable — Rocean’s plan is “to remove 1 billion single-use bottles from circulation within five years” — it’s built on the faulty premise that Americans even need to buy bottled water in the first place. Essentially, buying an expensive machine to filter water so you don’t buy bottled water cures a problem that is entirely avoidable in the first place.

For most people in the U.S., tap water is generally safe to drink. If you want to be extra cautious, you can buy a relatively inexpensive filter such as ones made by Brita or Pur. There is also always the option of boiling water to kill potential microorganisms.

But perhaps the main reason to stop buying bottled water is that it’s not even safer to drink than most tap water (and it has more microplastics). This is due to the fact that in the U.S. and Europe, more rigorous standards are applied to tap water than bottled, according to a study commissioned by The World Wildlife Fund. So really, people are paying corporations to put water that’s of equal or lesser quality to tap water in a plastic bottle that will live on for hundreds of years.

So spare yourself from opening your wallet for what Fast Company has dubbed “the Juicero of water,” and pour yourself a nice glass or reusable bottle of tap water. Not only will you prevent another plastic bottle from entering a landfill or the ocean, you’ll save money too.

No More Spills: Lyd Water Bottle Only Opens When You Take a Drink

It would be easy to dismiss the Lyd upon first hearing about it. It’s a Kickstarter hardware project that is setting out to build an electronic water bottle. I mean, water bottles have worked pretty well without electronics for decades, and this could seem like another ploy to “disrupt” something that doesn’t need any disrupting.

But! If the Lyd works as advertised, it might actually be useful.

The Lyd bills itself as “the world’s first spill-proof water bottle.” It keeps liquids from dribbling down your chin with an electronic lyd, err, lid, that automatically opens and closes when you put your mouth to it. You can see how it works in this video:

LYD VIDEO TRAILER FINAL H264

That means the Lyd is spill-proof. Again, if it works as promised, you can hold it at any angle, any time, or knock it over and keep all of your hot coffee inside.

The Lyd also features a 360-degree drinking area, which means no awkward spinning the bottle around blindly while driving trying to find the opening. It’s everywhere! Just put your lips to the Lyd and take a sip.

The downside is that unlike every other beverage bottle you own, the Lyd needs to be re-charged. Depending on use, the Lyd needs to be recharged every two weeks to a month. It recharges wirelessly, using the Qi standard, and takes an average of four hours to charge.

The company behind Lyd launched its Kickstarter campaign today and is hoping to raise $30,000. Early backers can get a 13oz Lyd complete with Qi charger for $39, or they can pick up the 17oz version and Qi charger for $44. Both models are made from stainless steel, and the two sizes will eventually retail for $69 and $79, respectively.

If successful, Lyd says it will use the Kickstarter money to help place initial orders with its manufacturers. The company has raised some additional funding via angels and friends.

The Lyd may not heat or cool your beverage to a precise temperature like the Ember travel mug, but if Lyd delivers (which, on Kickstarter, is not a guarantee) it could disrupt your current water bottle option.