Mark Cuban’s bidet brand buys a shower startup that Tim Cook courted

The folks behind Nebia, the shower technology startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and many other big names, sold Mark Cuban’s Brondell, which makes bidets, air fresheners, and the like.

The Nebia name and water-saving nozzles will be retained after the deal, co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon said in an interview with TechCrunch. Despite my insistence, the pair declined to say how much Brondell paid to take over the brand, which launched ages ago (2015) on Kickstarter. If you know the terms of the contract, it wouldn’t be great if Tell me?

Together with Cook and a group of early Kickstarter backers, Nebia raised money at the family office of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Fitbit co-founder James Park, Y-Combinator, Stanford. I have to continue

Nebia stood out when it launched with expensive sprinklers that sprayed users with a fine hurricane mist, saving up to 70% of the water sprayed by a typical shower head, the startup claimed. That was polarizing; Nebia’s seething storm overpowered yours, but she shared an essay showcasing her unconventional approach to a beloved ritual. Over the years, Nebia has scaled back to attract more customers, reducing projected water savings to about 50%.

During its time as an independent company, Nebia estimated that its customers saved more than “500 million gallons of water” and the “equivalent of more than 27 million kWh (27 GWh) of energy.” The company said the energy savings are “roughly equivalent to the annual energy use of 2,700 U.S. homes.” Winter told TechCrunch that Nebia’s products, including those made with Moen, have reached more than 100,000 homes.

“I am currently working on future products [at Brondell]Parisi-Amon said: “The ones that are directly related to what we’ve done before and the ones that are completely different, but you can still apply the materials we’ve worked on and the analytics we’ve worked with. .”

Winter and the rest of Nebia’s 15-person team also joined Brondell, the co-founders said.

Both leaders emphasized that they remain committed to helping people save water, an important task as climate change causes droughts.

“This is why we started and why I left Apple at this point,” said Parisi-Amon. “I wanted to use my degree in mechanical engineering to create a product that literally anyone can trade for what they have and that is better for the environment,” adds Parisi-Amon. “And that work is not done yet.”

Winter said as much as our conversation ended earlier this week. “As the population grows and we use more water per capita and we have more frequent dry spells and more severe droughts, the equation is not very positive,” Winter said. “We need to find ways to use water more effectively.”