PIC CAPTION: Kaloola director of business development Eben Ntando Mbhele is proud of what Kaloola is doing, bringing safe, dignified and hygienic sanitation through its innovative waterless flush toilets to people who need access to clean, safe sanitation in areas such as informal settlements, construction sites, and events. Image: Supplied / Kaloola
Sanitation is a serious issue that needs to be spoken about, as not everyone has access to clean sanitation. Kaloola, a South African green economy startup is making waves in Africa with its innovative, pioneering, waterless and chemical free toilets. Kaloola director of business development Eben Ntando Mbhele talks to AfricArena’s Jabulile Sonya Ngwenya about why Kalooa is a great success story within Africa’s circular economy market which is a billion dollar market.
“Everyone has the right to safe, dignified and hygienic sanitation,” says Mbhele. This is a basic human right, yet he points out that many people, over 40% of the world’s population, do not have access to safely managed sanitation. This is a sobering reminder that we cannot take access to clean water and sanitation for granted. This is where Kaloola, a South African green economy startup operating within the circular economy comes in with its waterless toilet technology that is revolutionizing hygiene and sanitation within South Africa’s informal settlements.
“Kaloola provides and services waterless flush toilets in informal and underserved communities in South Africa. We provide a waterless flush toilet and service it on a regular basis, using a subscription model,” Mbhele tells AfricArena.
Happy about how winning the AfricArena Best Green Economy Startup Award at this year’s AfricArena Johannesburg Deep Tech, AI, Enterprise and Green Economy Summit has catapulted his startup into the spotlight, Mbhele says, “Winning this award has led to interview opportunities and some invitations to attend exhibitions nationally. It also made it possible for potential funders to reach out for advice and conversations about our innovative product.” Mbhele shares that a television interview on the South African 24-hour digital satellite television news channel, Newzroom Afrika which is broadcast across Africa on DStv did much to bring about a greater awareness about Kaloola’s circular economy approach to the solution they provide.
This startup is on a mission to transform sanitation in informal settlements with its innovative, waterless home toilets, powered by award winning, pioneering sustainable technology from Loowatt, a UK based waterless toilet company that uses sealed containers to store waste until the toilets are serviced.
Passionate about ensuring that people have access to healthy, safe, clean and dignified sanitation, Mbhele says “It is important to provide equitable access to safely managed sanitation in informal and underserved communities across Africa. While I was managing a chemical toilet contract in some informal settlements for one of the largest providers in South Africa; I realized how unhygienic and inaccessible these toilets are for those that need them the most.” He tells AfricArena that right then, he knew there must be a solution for this problem. When Loowatt approached me about helping develop a service model with their technology in South Africa, the need and solution really came together organically. This was the beginning of this partnership to bring this innovative solution to South Africa.
“I believe everyone deserves access to dignified sanitation and through Kaloola, we are really giving people back their dignity through access to a waterless flush home toilet.”
“Our toilets eliminate water and chemical consumption and reduce negative environmental impact while providing a hygienic and odour-free experience. Kaloola services are setting new standards for convenience, hygiene, and environmental responsibility,” Mbhele says with a smile.
He shares with AfricArena that it has not all been plain sailing as the 2020 pandemic, together with a few unexpected disruptions to the supply chain put a few spanners in the works. “We initially had $120,000 in startup capital that was used for product development and looking for follow-on funding and testing the market,” says Mbhele. “The main challenge we experienced in building and launching a startup during that time was that our product is imported from the UK and the initial funding requests and approvals happened before the covid pandemic. The sudden shipping price surges due to the Suez Canal blockage meant that we lost 40% of the capital to shipping and duties. This meant that we had to scale down our stock order and reduce marketing spend in the beginning.”
Our startup was not left unscathed by the funding winter, Mbhele says. What we did to cope was that “we did more research on potential partners, customized our pitch and also secured more one on one meetings versus sending emails. So more research and custom pitches helped us, and we invested in refining our pitch and funding ask and created an MVP to ensure we can easily scale.”
The largest amount of funds Kaloola has raised to date has been $800,000 which Mbhele says was used for “buying initial toilet and machinery stock, as well as marketing and brand development, including onboarding an executive team.”
Mbhele shares that they are looking at raising $500,000 in funds before the end of 2024. These funds, he says, will be deployed towards “increasing Kaloola’s commercial trailer toilet fleet for events and construction projects, expanding our home toilet fleet and establishing new projects in new territories across South Africa.”
Mbhele says no two days are the same for him, as he works at building Kaloola up with his team. “I balance my day with community sales activities, meeting partners and investors as well as municipal and utility partners.”
He admits there are challenges, and one of the most daunting challenges he tells AfricArena is that from a bureaucratic and implementation perspective, “there is general hesitation and skepticism from government to embrace our solution in South Africa due to challenges faced by municipalities and government to advocate for user paid sanitation models.”
The best advice a mentor gave him, he laughs, was to “Keep it simple, stupid.” The simplicity principle is a timeless strategy that helps founders, C-suite executives and business owners to eliminate the clutter and unnecessary, ineffective processes so they and their teams can focus on what is truly important to ensure success. Looking at the future, he says he and his team are focused on “attracting partners, donors and investors to provide user pay subsidies so that more people could have access to our solution across Africa.”
Mbhele says his words of wisdom to any founder who wants to work with the green economy sector is to “always remind yourself why you started what you do because knowing and remembering your why is what keeps you going in lean times.”
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