Active Buildings: Actively working to make India a healthier place.

Have you ever wondered that the building that you have been residing in may not be conducive to living? Well, we may not realize it sometimes because it is something that is hardly noticeable. But that doesn’t mean that you are living in an environment with clean air or clean water. Quite often, we tend to ignore these minor warnings with statements like “Chalta hai” or “Aaj kuch thik nahi lag raha hai”. We forget about it and as a result, it grows over time and reaches such a stage where you might even need to consult a doctor. Ask any Delhiite and they will vouch for it. 

But then, how do we check if our homes are perfect for living? Is there any solution that can do a full audit of our surroundings and can recommend the changes based on the results? Enter ActiveBuildings, which provides plug and play solutions that improve the quality of life in buildings. We had a chance to talk to the co-founders Abhinav and Priyans and get to know what ActiveBuildings is up to and what are the future plans. Here are the excerpts of the interview. 

Give a brief info about your startup?

ActiveBuildingsTM is the only RESET certified brand in India to provide plug and play solutions that improve the QUALITY OF LIFE in Buildings. We deliver this via our family of unique air, water, and food quality sensors. These proprietary sensors are enabled with state of the art wireless technology that communicates with any legacy or modern software systems thus enabling them with powerful analytics and self-learning models. 

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

Whether it is commercial or residential, every buildings’ occupants are dynamic and therefore their indoor environment keeps changing. ActiveBuildings’ solutions use the data that we meticulously collect to provide each building with a customized solution that can manage their particular environment, while even using their existing systems and tools. Monitoring pollutant levels, humidity, temperature, and other factors that affect the overall Indoor Air Quality of the building, we can tailor-make solutions that have been seen to improve mood, morale and even productivity levels among occupants 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

Our co-founders Abhinav and Priyans have been working together since college days. After graduation, they started a product RnD company and built a small and agile team expert in developing a hardware-software company. Abhinav, our CEO has over a decade of experience in designing high fidelity cutting edge systems covering the areas of 3D printing, biomedical instrumentation, machine vision systems, etc. He leads the overall architecture of the system linked and business operations. Priyans, our CTO has over 7 years of experience in developing sensors, instrumentation engineering, hardware design, and manufacturing. He leads the technology vision, hardware RnD, and operations. 

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

The air and water quality in the country is one of the biggest concerns that impact us as startup founders. The fact that people are using the wrong solutions to mitigate these issues is something that keeps us paranoid. How do we create more awareness? How do we put out more information about the important health issues people are surrounded by? Finding quicker answers to these questions is something that keeps us on our toes. 

Who are your competitors and how are you better than them?

We are perceived to be a hardware company that manufactures sensors. By that extension, any company that does that is a competitor. But we consider ourselves as a data analytics company with expertise in creating innovative hardware. 

How hard is it to have a work-life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

Boundaries are important and we make sure to follow the same company culture. We plan and organize our and our employees work in a way that we meet our deadlines and have quality off-work time as well. 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

We were primarily a bootstrapped company for the first 18 months and we raised an undisclosed amount from friends and family to expand in 3 cities – Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. We are now looking to raise our next round to take our platform on a national level. 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

People think we are a sensors company, but we are a hardcore data analytics company. The only reason we focus on manufacturing sensors is to ensure the integrity of the data. We primarily analyze complex data to provide optimum solutions based on the context and uniqueness of the buildings. 

What gets you excited about this company?

We are currently working on tech for the South – East Asian climate. The next 15 years in South East Asia will see a new ecosystem of buildings forming and what really excites us is that the ActiveBuildings data platform we are creating is going to be the centerpiece for decades to come in.