How our portfolio companies are making the world a better place
Starting with Air Up
At Five Seasons Ventures, we are committed to backing food tech entrepreneurs for a healthier, more sustainable and more efficient food system. To show you that it’s not just a nice tagline, we decided to shine the spotlight on our portfolio’s in a series of founder talks, starting with our most recent investment: Air Up. Air Up is a Food Tech company with patents that cover a system including a simple-to-use but clever bottle and its aroma pods. The system is capable of delivering ‘taste through scent’ by giving the brain the illusion of flavour thanks to the aroma contained in the pod.
Lena, one of Air Up’s cofounder, is kicking off the lead. She has a background in product design and alongside with Tim (CTO and cofounder) she started the company when they were both still at university.
- Lena, how did it all started and was the purpose to build an impact company from the very beginning?
Back at university, the first conference we attended was a talk from a neuroscientist on how the senses can be influenced by technologies. When we understood that flavors can be induced by smell, we immediately realized the opportunity it could represent for health and wellbeing. The potential benefits for environment came in a second time when conceiving the product. Because Air Up’s technology is delivered in a reusable bottle, the impact for environment compared to purchasing single-use bottles is better.
- How do you make sure each step of your value chain (from production to marketing and distribution) becomes more sustainable?
The first area we focused on was the conception of the bottle. Even if the product in itself is better than existing products from a sustainability perspective we had to find a way to make the whole product eco-friendly. The main challenge was the capsule system, as it is not reusable. We decided to choose plastic over aluminium as plastic is recyclable. To make the capsule entirely recyclable, we are only using plastic for the capsule and the sponge inside. We also chose to put enough flavor in the capsules to make them last for 5L of water, although it’s of course less profitable from an economic point of view. For the bottle, we chose to use tritan as it’s a very robust material and therefore a very durable and long-lasting product.
From a logistics perspective, our product is also better as capsules are smaller than plastic bottles and shipped less frequently. However, we are looking to relocate the production nearer to Germany (for now, China-based) to diminish the CO2 emission linked to transportation.
Our branding is of course built upon our values. Alongside of the whole topic of responsible product development, transparency is going to be a big driver for our brand, as we see that this is going to be more and more important for our target group.
· How have you adapted your organisation to tackle these key challenges?
Within our organisation, we promote diversity. We came to realize, that we really profited from our different backgrounds within the founding team. Even though the gender split in the founding team is not yet very diverse, we at least achieved to have a gender-balanced management team and team in general.
To tackle sustainability even further, we are looking to hire a sustainability manager/expert, do not hesitate to reach out!
