Marcus Richards
Indoor air quality desperately needs to be improved in many indoor spaces.
At Rensair, we have developed portable, hospital-grade air purifiers for removing harmful airborne particulate matter, from pollen and vehicle emissions to viruses and bacteria.
Our purpose is to protect and enhance lives through proven clean air technology.
Tell us about yourself?
My career to date has been in financial services, but my passion for this line of work predates that. It started as a child.
My father was a prominent ventilation engineer. I had personally suffered from allergies as a young boy, so he invented a portable air purifier as a solution to my problem and with the wider market of Scandinavian hospitals in mind.
The eureka moment was when, a couple of years ago, the pandemic hit. My twin brother, Frederik, and I decided that it was the optimum time to quit our jobs and follow our passion for pure air.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
To trust my own judgement. You have to surround yourself with the right human resources to do the things you are not expert at and, by and large, I and my co-founders have got the big decisions right. With people, gut instinct counts for a lot.
What problem does your business solve?
Air pollution is a growing problem. It causes 7m premature deaths per year but is actually 2 to 5 times worse indoors than outdoors. Rensair provides a solution to protect respiratory health within the built environment, a solution that can be equally powerful for transport, whether public or private.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
The idea is to take the fundamental product and technology invented by my father for Scandinavian hospitals, and broaden the addressable market such that all sectors can benefit from clean air.
The problem of unhealthy indoor air affects everyone and of course it has been exacerbated by Covid-19. I want to make clean air attainable for offices, schools, care homes, restaurants, gyms and so on. Public transport too. Everyone, across all walks of life, deserves the right to clean air.
What is your magic sauce?
We differ from the competition in two important, interconnected ways. First, the engineering design is superior to other portable air purifiers, meaning that we deliver a very high clean air delivery rate. We don’t just trap and inactivate pathogens, we succeed in cleaning the entire room.
Because of our advanced technology, we are able to attain certifications from independent third party laboratories, which is critical in an unregulated market where people’s health and safety is at stake. Those competitive advantages set us apart in a crowded marketplace.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We have a substantial addressable market and aim to scale up rapidly. The global air purification market is expected to be worth $23bn by 2028 (Grand View Research) and the B2B ‘subtractive’ element (based on filtration and/or UV based) is estimated at around $7bn.
The intention is to grow the business in terms of geographic footprint, especially in the USA. We will also launch new products and develop added value functionality, including IOT connectivity for smart usage and nano-carbon filtration to remove noxious gases as well as particulate matter.
We also need to develop our balance between direct sales and distributors.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
We recently completed a Series A financing round led by Hoxton Ventures. In total, we raised $7m, which was an important milestone but not without its challenges.
The biggest issue was the amount of time invested, which means that you simply cannot spend the usual amount of time running the business, getting involved with customers and mentoring staff.
Another issue is marketing. You have to be prepared to try things out and use metrics to ascertain what works and what doesn’t, then change course accordingly. ‘Pivot’ is an overused word, but it’s essential in a start-up.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We want businesses across all sectors to reach out and discover how our practical solution for clean air can help them, not just in looking after the welfare of their employees and/or customers but in providing other business benefits.
We can save customers 40% on energy consumption if they partially offset mechanical ventilation with air purification. Furthermore, clean air boosts the bottom line by enhancing cognitive functions, increasing productivity, and reducing absenteeism.
For us, clean air isn’t just a business, it’s a calling! The best starting point is to ask for a free consultation with a technical expert. Link: https://rensair.co.uk/book-consultation/
