Neev II Fund, (managed by SBICAP Ventures Limited – a State Bank of India group company), a leading climate and sustainability focused SME fund announced its investment into Solinas Integrity Pvt Ltd (“Solinas”). Solinas is a climate-tech company, established in 2018 that develops robotic and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for the water and sanitation industry, with a focus on detecting defects and leakages in water and sewer pipelines, assessing their condition and eliminating manual scavenging through mechanized cleaning of manholes and septic tanks. Having taken a significant minority position in the company, this is Neev II Fund’s sixth investment. Private sector capital has also been mobilized from Zerodha Founders investment arm, Rainmatter Capital.
Solinas has three major products under its current portfolio with multiple patents – Endobot, Swasth AI and HomoSEP. Endobot is a crawler robot designed for internal condition assessment and defect detection in water, sewer and drainage lines. Endobot is enhanced by Swasth AI which is an AI based digitisation platform storing and analyzing all the data collected by the Endobot. This integration of Endobot and Swasth AI is poised to address the pressing issue of water distribution losses, which can reach staggering levels of 40-50% and result in daily losses amounting to INR 1,630 million in certain states. HomoSEP is a robot specifically designed for the effective and complete cleaning of manholes and septic tanks (4x faster than manual scavenging) with a motive to eradicate manual scavenging.
Solinas is led by Founder and CEO, Divanshu Kumar (Mechanical Engineer from IIT Madras, recognized by leading organizations such as Women Economic Forum, Singapore International Foundation, Forbes etc.) and Founder, Moinak Banerjee (Masters in Machine Design and Engineering from KTH Stockholm and having earlier worked with Scania Group, European Space Agency etc.). Neev II’s strategic investment will support Solinas’s mission of climate change adaptation by improving the resilience of water and sanitation infrastructure.

Sally Taylor, Minister Counsellor, UK Government said, “Water and sanitation are essential services on which we all depend. The UK welcomes and supports Neev II backing Solinas and their new technology that reduces the amount of water lost through leaks and deploys safer cleaning methods. It fits well with the UK’s commitment to invest in Indian start- up enterprises that offer innovative climate solutions and improve people’s lives, and strengthens our collaboration with India.”

Nicola Beer, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) said, “The EIB welcomes NEEV II fund’s investment in Solinas matching our commitment to improve access to clean water and sanitation for all. The funding of Solinas is aligned with the European Union’s Global Gateway initiative, supporting sound projects that improve global and regional connectivity in the digital, climate, transport, health, energy and education sectors. The EIB is proud to support a project that can benefit with improved access to water supply around 2000 people per each kilometre of repaired water pipelines, and that can reduce four times the cleaning time of manholes and septic tanks.”

Mitsunori Saito, Chief Representative, JICA India Office said “Since JICA invested Neev II Fund, JICA, SBICAP Ventures and portfolio companies have been expanding cooperation for co-created impact. I am delighted to welcome Solinas to join our JICA – Neev Fund co-creation platform. This investment aligns with our global agenda of securing sustainable water resources and promoting environmental management. JICA has been supporting various water supply and sanitation projects throughout India such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Assam with 20 million beneficiaries. Solinas’ innovative technologies offer solutions to persisting challenges such as non-revenue water reduction and safe desludging. We are looking forward to partnership for further impact in water and sanitation sector with Solinas and Neev Fund.”

Suresh Kozhikote, MD & CEO SBICAP Ventures Ltd said, “SBICAP Ventures is committed to fostering innovation and sustainability in climate related investments. This aligns with the country’s vision of providing clean water and sanitation to every household. Our support for this transformative initiative, through Neev II Fund, also aims to empower the sanitation workers in India by equipping them with the necessary technology and resources for equitable and safe work conditions.”

Akshay Panth, CIO, Neev Funds shared, “Our investment in Solinas is aligned with our objective of enabling technology led revolution in nascent sectors such as water and sanitation which have received limited funding and positively contribute to addressing climate change challenges. Through our investment, we aim to pave the way for a stronger and sustainable water and sanitation infrastructure, building climate resilience, enabling adaptation and driving social impact/change.”

Divanshu Kumar and Moinak Banerjee, Founders, Solinas expressed, “With an unwavering dedication to innovation and sustainability, we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Neev II. This partnership promises to serve as a dynamic catalyst, advancing our mission to eliminate manual scavenging, reduce water losses and improve their quality and access. We are committed to innovate within the water and sanitation issues across all industry. Working along with Neev II, we eagerly anticipate sculpting a future for this industry that is both cleaner and more sustainable, eradicating the challenges of inadequate access to clean water and sanitation infrastructure across the world”.