World Water Day: Startup Zonnett offers car wash services – without water

A Mumbai-based startup Zonnett has launched an innovative campaign ‘Zero Water Car Wash’ on the occasion of World Water Day. The water conservation campaign is aimed to fight against the car wash industry which wastes lakhs of litres of water every year.

The startup does not use the traditional water jet to wash cars. Instead, it uses three different solvents for the external body, interiors and tyres. “After applying the solvents, we immediately rub the portion without any usage of water. All the work is preferably done in shade to protect the solvents from sunlight,” said Abhijit Saxena, CEO of Zonnett.

As per the company’s official statement, the campaign has been run over large number of residential societies across Mumbai in the past 2-3 months and has managed to save over 7 lakh litres of water. “A normal car wash, which most of the car owners do everyday uses a bucket of water, i.e. around 20 litres. Say a housing society has 10 cars which are cleaned everyday of the month. You can do the math to see the amount of water that goes in cleaning cars,” said Saxena.

Commenting on the Zero Water Car Wash campaign, Saxena said, “Water is a precious resource that is depleting day by day and the statistics are dangerously low. As we at Zonnett always believe in betterment of our customers and the society through our initiatives, we came up with the idea of ‘Zero Water Car Wash’. This innovative solution is not only distinctive, but, also helps in preventing one of the biggest crisis of water shortage that we face in the near future. We are focusing on saving water through our ‘Zero water car wash’ campaign which is targeted towards the residential societies in Mumbai primarily. Also, we will be introducing other doorstep modules soon for our customers.”

Apart from the water conserving car wash program, the startup has also introduced ‘Doorstep Car Spa’ and ‘Doorstep Car Servicing’ services. The company stated that it currently entertains over 400 inquiries on a daily basis.  

Explaining the business model, Saxena said, “Currently the automobile repair and service market is fragmented and unorganized. It is a difficult task for a car owner to find a trusted car service provider at an affordable price. We realized that there is a huge price gap between the authorized dealers and the local garages, and how difficult it is for a car owner to find a trusted service centre that does not charge an exorbitant amount. The idea of starting Zonnett was germinated due to a similar personal experience and since inception we have been receiving phenomenal response from our customers.”

“Also, we have started visiting apartments and societies to demonstrate our new car wash techniques. We offer a package deal for housing societies where a bulk of their cars are washed by us for a particular period,” he added.

Founded in August 2015, Zonnett is a technology enabled platform with a hyperlocal business model which offers services through its mobile app, website and a toll free number. It plans to expand to other cities in the next 2-3 months. The company raised seed funding of Rs 2.5 crore and plans to further raise US$ 10 million in Series A funding.

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