Hi, climate friends 👋 

Unfortunately, I must inform you all that I did not win the $1.58 billion Mega Millions. Had I won, I would’ve invested in all of you 🥹

❗️ Quick Update - our intro request form was not populating a couple of the startups we’ve featured - that is now fixed! Go request introductions, these startups would love to chat with anyone interested in connecting, and they need our support 🚀 

Today at a glance:

• Introducing Kadeya

• Detailing their business model, tech, traction and team

• Why do we need this now?

• How you can help them!

-  Angelica 💜

Featured Startup: Kadeya

📍 Headquarters

Chicago, Illinois

⚙️ Technology

Kadeya’s patent-pending kiosk for the first time ever washes, sanitizes, inspects, and refills bottles on-site, combining a bottling plant with a dishwasher and a soda fountain in a unit the size of a vending machine.

Their kiosk provides the convenience of grab & go single use water bottles with superior safety and performance outcomes and the sustainability of a refill station. With their digital tools, workers can monitor their hydration levels to prevent heat illness or other hydration-related injuries; likewise, employers can dynamically implement water and rest breaks depending on changing environmental, health and work conditions.

Kadeya bottles are forever assets with a patent-pending custom design. Each has a unique QR code laser etched on the bottom. To vend a bottle, users scan a work badges on the station, which we link to the bottle – resulting in >99% return rates. Kadeya filters contaminants beyond EPA standards, providing safe water verified with full supply chain transparency through our bottle QR code, which no other refill solution provides.

💲 Business Model

Kadeya's B2B2C model provides convenient hydration solutions for industrial corporates and workers. The kiosk combines a bottling plant, dishwasher, and soda fountain in a vending machine-sized unit. Workers scan security badges to receive chosen beverage/s. Water is paid for by corporates; "upgraded" beverages (carbonated, flavored, enhanced with electrolytes for eg) are covered by the individual worker.

For corporates, Kadeya eliminates distribution logistics and offers price parity with single-use options, along with OSHA compliance and ESG reporting. Additional digital products provide hydration insights and promote worker safety and performance.

🚀 Traction

• Kadeya’s first commercial kiosk deployed in Indianapolis at a construction site and began generating revenue in January 2023. In March 2023, the general contractor committed to an additional seven kiosks for Kadeya to be the only hydration option onsite for 1100 tradespeople.

• They won two contracts from the US Air Force

• Recently, Kadeya launched a paid pilot from a leading pharmaceutical company. They are selling out of product daily and expect to expand the contract within that campus as well as in their northern California campus.

• On August 28th they will launch a paid pilot at a major hardware manufacturing facility west of O’Hare for Kadeya to deploy with 250 workers.

• Kadeya has over $50M in weighted pipeline potential and are pre-committed for all the units we can produce through 2024.

• Kadeya is currently collaborating with three of the world’s leading beverage companies to carry their flavors.

• 2022 cohort at Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator

• Kadeya’s supporters, partners, investors, accelerators, & advisors

  • ASP Group

  • Supply Change Capital

  • PS27

  • Evergreen Climate Innovations

  • Oxford Angel Fund

  • Josephine Collective

  • Clocktower Climate

  • Mark Dockser

  • Hugo Barra

  • Andy Rachleff

  • Amy Friedlander Hoffman

  • The University of Chicago Booth School of Business / Steven Tarrson

🙏 Founder

• Manuela Zoninsein - Kadeya is the third startup founded and led by Manuela Zoninsein:

  • Manuela sold her first business, based in Beijing where she lived for eight years, to a local business partner.

  • Her second was funded initially by a grant from the Brazilian government’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and is now the largest online marketplace for smallholder farmers in that country and where she was born.

  • Manuela worked at Palantir Technologies, leading business development globally with a focus on finance, aerospace, retail, and CPG while testing the core business and technical assumptions behind Kadeya.

📱 Socials

💁🏻‍♀️ Why Now?

Water is essential for our survival, yet the bottled water industry creates significant environmental challenges. The $280B+ global market generates staggering waste, with an optimistic estimate that 91% of the 1.2 million plastic bottles consumed per minute globally are not recycled leaving 38 billion bottles in US landfills annually. Producing each bottle requires six times the amount of water it contains and contributes 2.5 million tons of CO2 emissions annually.

Calls for change are arising from consumers and driving government action globally and nationally.

Kadeya most immediately addresses stringent Occupational Safety and Health Administration mandates on potable water provision in industrial environments through its Heat Illness Prevention program. The logistical headaches of providing enough hydration, a competitive labor environment, rising temperatures all add up to cause headaches for industrial corporates, safety/operations managers, and HR staff.

Industrial workers draw from communities with little access to safe drinking water. Lead, PFAS, VOCs, microplastics, and other toxins present in highest concentrations to overwhelmingly low-income and under-served communities. These consumers distrust the tap and spend disproportionate time, money, and effort to purchase single-use products.

How Can the Community Help?

💸 Fundraising

Kadeya is currently raising a pre-seed round 🎉

 💼 Fractional Talent

Kadeya is looking for Fractional Sales talent for support on their Air Force contract.

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