Annie Lou She was a Harvard student when COVID-19 brought the world to a screeching halt. This includes her experience at her own university.
“I remember being basically kicked off campus in March of 2020 and everything was virtual,” Lou, 22, told CNBC in a video interview in June. She did not return to school at the end of the spring semester of 2020, when Lou was a sophomore.
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She hasn’t looked back since.
Because it’s Lou and her brother David25 years old, then started and growing his own company. H2Ok innovationwhich uses a combination of hardware and software to improve plant efficiency by reducing liquid usage.
“I can’t speak to what happened, but what I can say is that it was a very easy decision for me and a very clear one,” Annie told CNBC. “There were practically no tradeoffs.”
Leaving Harvard to join his brother in making factories more efficient might seem like an unlikely move.
However, the family is deeply connected. Annie and David’s paternal grandfather started a factory manufacturing specialty fine chemicals in China, and their father worked in the family’s chemical manufacturing business. So did Annie and David’s uncle. And they were proud to do so. “Like any family business, everyone is involved in the family business,” Annie told CNBC.
David was born in Saskatoon, Canada and moved to the Bay Area when he was one year old, where Annie was born. Their parents are immigrants from China.
Annie Lu visited her family’s factory in China when she was a child.
Photo credit: Annie Lou
When Annie and David were young, their grandfather, who had a deep passion for chemistry, taught them how chemical reactions and various industrial instruments work. Also, as children, Annie and David toured their family’s factories and learned about chemical plant parts such as distillation towers. The idea of ”lean manufacturing” became a hot topic in my family.
Annie told CNBC, “I remember spending my summer vacations in elementary and junior high school touring factories, touching big industrial machines and understanding how they work. We grew up in this field.” “You could say that our inspiration came from there.”
Since officially launching our sister business in March 2021, H20k innovation Raised $6.8 million from investors including building capital, flybridge capital, techstars, 1517 Fund and 2048 Ventures.The company’s headquarters is Green Town Research Institute We’re making money in Boston. Annie and David were recognized as: Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2022 And in March, H20k Innovations was recognized at Unilever’s annual supplier summit, “Startup of the Year Award”.
Annie and David Lu at an event at the Harvard Innovation Lab. When I was still working out my ideas.
Photo courtesy of Annie and David Lou
The two founded the company just as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains around the world and put the importance of manufacturing in the limelight.
“The pandemic has exposed gaps in manufacturing and industries that inspired us to launch H20k,” Annie said. “It was a perfect opportunity.”
From Minnesota’s Techstars to Boston’s Shop Establishment
In the fall of 2020, Annie and David moved to Minneapolis, USA. Techstars Farm to Fork The program accepted them based on previous projects.
“Annie and I love hacking and building things together,” David told CNBC. “We get along very well with each other. We have a lot of projects that we built on when we were kids.”
Annie and David Lu on the farm to form the TechStars Accelerator.
Photo courtesy of Annie and David Lou
They came to Techstars with the idea of developing a low-cost technique for identifying contamination in natural waterways and drinking water. But as part of the program, Annie and David reached out to his 120 executives from different areas of food technology and asked them what their biggest worries were.
Ultimately, they decided to focus on improving the efficiency of liquid usage in the manufacturing process.
“Liquids and fluids are at the heart of production processes in many areas, including food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, semiconductor manufacturing, and cooling in commercial buildings and factories,” Annie said. “It’s a very large void, an area with a lot of gaps.”
By the end of Techstars, Annie and David had set the vision for H2Ok Innovations and started executing.
They came up with the idea of combining physical sensors and software to measure and optimize both the use and composition of liquids and fluids in manufacturing. Their process involves collecting that data and using software to combine the liquid data with data from other factories and facilities in what Annie calls an “extremely versatile” Internet of Things system.
Traditionally, data collected at factories was stored on-premises. “We are basically unlocking data streams that have never been exploited before,” Annie said.
Improving the efficient use of liquids in manufacturing processes reduces waste and product losses, making factory operations more sustainable.
In 2021, David joined Annie in Boston, working at a space called. craftsman’s asylum Stayed for about 6 months then moved Green Town Research Institute.
Annie Lu and David Lu with members of the H2Ok innovation team at Unilever’s Ben and Jerry facility.
Photo courtesy of Annie and David Lou
From Fall 2021 to early 2022, Annie and David 100+ accelerators The program is a virtual accelerator program operated by Unilever in partnership with AB InBev, Coca Cola Co. and Colgate-Palmolive.
“The purpose of the 100+ Accelerator Program is to accelerate the growth of start-ups that develop sustainability solutions that involve reducing the energy used in our supply chains. Through this partnership, we work directly with entrepreneurs to refine and test new technologies in our business, putting their solutions on an accelerated trajectory and making a positive impact towards our sustainability goals.” Sandeep DesaiUnilever’s ice cream chief product supply officer told CNBC in a statement.
“These start-ups are operating in many areas, including new packaging technologies, digital and geospatial solutions, and new ways to upcycle product ingredients that were once considered waste,” Desai said.
As part of this partnership, Unilever tested the H2Ok innovation solution at Ben & Jerry’s facility in Waterbury, Vermont.
“For our Waterbury Ice Cream sourcing division, our partnership has reduced downtime during cleaning by 18%, increased productivity and reduced supply chain costs. We have also saved 40% of water consumption in the cleaning cycle using this technology,” said Desai. Desai said Unilever is also working to implement the H2Ok solution at non-ice cream facilities in the United States and Brazil.
In the spring of 2021, the brothers raised their first funding, with additional funding in the summer of 2022. H2Ok Innovations currently has a total of 17 employees.
H2Ok’s value proposition is particularly timely for investors as more manufacturing is returning to the United States and these facilities face increasingly stringent efficiency standards.
“The U.S. is emerging again as a manufacturing powerhouse, with the usual technology lifecycle adoption curve compressed for industrial companies, and a drive for both innovation and efficiency given decades of intense global competition,” Flybridge Capital’s Jeff Basgang told CNBC. “U.S. manufacturers have strong climate and sustainability mandates and are being asked to be more precise with their liquid and energy usage.”
Additionally, some investors see the sensor technology used by H2Ok Innovations as a necessity.
“We found H2Ok’s vision of replacing monolith-based water measurements with a swarm of sensors very compelling. Our argument is that all measurements and data will be provided in real time and used to optimize the operations of plants, data centers and more,” said Alex Iskold. 2048 Ventures told CNBC. “That’s exactly what he’s building H2Ok for.”
Annie and the H2Ok Innovations team at the customer facility point to their own technology installed in the factory.
Photo credit: Annie Lou
Brotherhood is deep
All of the investors interviewed by CNBC commented on how impressed they were with Annie and David, which comes as no surprise to investors who dote on their portfolio companies, but this glorious tribute is nonetheless remarkable and reflects the brothers’ shared belief in building the space their family has worked in for generations.
“They are very smart, visionary and courageous. Founders that investors dream of backing,” Iscord told CNBC.
“We invested because they are great founders. Annie and David are relentless, incredibly smart, and this is the culture they have built at H2Ok.
“The founders are brilliant engineers and visionaries,” Flybridge Capital’s Basgang told CNBC.
Being siblings brings a kind of intrinsic trust to both Annie and David, who have been close to each other throughout their lives, and that is priceless.
The H2Ok Innovations team at Greentown Labs in Boston, where they are currently headquartered.
Photo courtesy of David and Annie Lou.
This trust is invaluable because running a business with employees, partners and customers can be stressful.
“We need a difficult conversation,” Annie said. “We can have these difficult conversations in a very comfortable way, holding each other accountable and encouraging each other to do better.”
“We know how to fight, we know how to have tough conversations. We’ve been fighting all our lives,” David said.
Both Annie and David chuckled at the thought. It’s kind of a joke, they said, but it’s also serious. Getting through difficult conversations is “very important for business success,” says David.
Their free skillset is also a big boon.
Annie is creative and “especially an out-of-the-box thinker,” David said. David also excels at recognizing patterns across disciplines and executing technology developments, says Annie.
They also share a philosophy on how to interact with people. They acknowledge that they are young and that it is important to listen to others.
“I think this aspect of authenticity and approaching every conversation with customers, users, mentors, etc. with a deep sense of humility and empathy is very important for us as a team, especially for us as founders,” said Annie.