Hydrologistics Africa

Hydrologistics Africa Ltd, trading as HydroIQ, is a Nairobi-based water technology company that describes itself as the world's first Virtual Water Network Operator (VWNO), a model it says borrows from the mobile virtual network operator concept by layering IoT and smart technologies on top of existing water infrastructure rather than replacing it. The platform connects smart meters (and supports manual meters) to provide analytics from source to consumer, insights on sourcing and consumption trends, leakage detection, predictive maintenance, and automated reporting for sustainability, compliance and accounting purposes.

Product lines listed by the company include SmartBilling (digitised metering, billing, payments and analytics in a single platform), HydroIQ Pay (utility bill payment), SmartGrid (monitoring of a water distribution network from source to consumer) and HydroIQ Store (SmartBilling-ready hardware/integrations). The company offers API integrations with third-party applications and payment providers and states that customers can be operational within three days. Its underlying device, as described in press coverage, is a GPS- and internet-enabled unit plugged into water supply systems in homes and businesses that uses sensors to monitor consumption, water quality and leakage and relays data in real time, with consumers billed on a pay-as-you-go basis via mobile money.

The company frames its market opportunity around water stress and distribution losses, citing UN projections that two-thirds of the world's population could live in water-stressed conditions by 2025, an estimated 50% of water supplied by African utilities lost before reaching consumers, and around 45% of potential revenue lost to poor infrastructure and poor bill payment. It also states that roughly 90% of consumer water infrastructure remains on manual metering and offline payments.

Founding story

Co-founder Victor Shikoli, an Electrical and Electronics Engineering graduate of Mount Kenya University, launched a research and innovation hub at the university that provided guidance on commercialising the invention. The founders' research into Nairobi's water problems — dry taps despite monthly bills, leakage, unmetered consumption, and water accounting for about 11% of household income — led them to develop the HydroIQ device and platform.

Business model

HydroIQ sells software and connected-metering services to homes, property managers, businesses, industries and water utilities, positioning itself as a layer on top of existing water infrastructure. Under the VWNO model the company says it takes over manual customer service, billing, metering and operational processes for water suppliers and automates them across mobile platforms, and claims benefits including a 3x increase in billing and payments, lower customer service and operational costs, higher consumer retention and the ability to change suppliers without affecting delivery. Service commitments are formalised in a published service level agreement covering defect severity levels, response and fix times, preventative and emergency maintenance, and a target of 99% monthly service availability.

SmartBilling is described as a SaaS solution for the water sector; the platform also handles billing and payment collection for water suppliers, integrating mobile money and other payment options, alongside a store for SmartBilling-ready products.

Traction

The company reported more than 3 million litres of water delivered through its network since launching in mid-2018, an average of around 200 monthly household installations in 2018 with a 1,500-household target for that year, and over 13,000 households in the pipeline before the SmartBilling launch in 2020. Survey work cited by the company indicated that over 90% of Nairobi residents surveyed wanted a way to monitor and manage water consumption. The Techstars job board lists the company at 1-10 employees.

Latest developments

The most recent product development documented is the launch of the SmartBilling SaaS application for property managers and utilities, digitising metering, billing, payments and customer service without replacing existing infrastructure, complementing the VWNO product launched in 2018. The company's site lists SmartBilling, HydroIQ Pay, SmartGrid and HydroIQ Store as its current product set, and its legal hub documentation was last updated in August 2021.