There is business everywhere. Not only on the Internet or in buoyant sectors such as banking. Based in Thailand, two former Swiss bankers understood this and chose to embark on a large-scale entrepreneurial adventure with Mister Loo. Their market: public toilets. Their target: Asia, then the whole world.
Investors are responding to the call, after a long phase of seed 7 years old. The recipe is all found and already a simple way to present yourself at the investor table without fear of not being taken seriously: “we are launching the toilet Starbucks” said Dominik Schuler and Andreas Wanner, former UBS bankers. They have already received $5 million from Silverhorn Investment Advisors, a Hong Kong-based investment fund. “Preparations for a Series B are already underway” reports Nikkei Asia.
The Mister Loo sites, understand their toilets, will increase from 20 to more than 1100 in the next few years added Nikkei Asia. The plan targets emerging Asia, and starts with 60 sites in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. Already 600,000 users per month are counted thanks to a presence in certain popular shopping centers. The toilets of the startup Mister Loo are betting on a price of 10 baht (0.27 €) in Thailand, the price for a space cleaned after each passage, Wifi, and a completely contactless route.
Why are their toilets worth millions?
Much of the differentiation between Mister Loo toilets and traditional toilets lies in the emphasis on health and telemedicine. The spaces will be equipped with several equipment to be able to stay informed of its physical conditions. From simple scales with measurement of body fat to live analysis of urine and stool using sensors in toilets. It will also be possible to follow his oxygen level in the blood and his blood pressure.
Toilets 2.0 must also be able to become useful sites for obtaining prescriptions and documents useful to doctors or hospitals. Dominik Schuler then spoke of “provide hospital-grade health data” and also to rename the company Doctor Loo to place itself in the health branch and get out of the gendered aspect of “Mister Loo”. The first toilets fully equipped with the equipment will be available in the first quarter of next year, confirmed its associates to the economic daily.
Asia, as the startup recalled in a press release, has more than 2.2 billion people belonging to the middle class. That is no less than 55% of the 4 billion people belonging to this class throughout the world. This is enough to understand the interest of offering pay toilets here before doing it elsewhere. “It will meet one of the most basic daily human needs that millions of people lack”said Andreas Wanner, who hopes to eventually become a real e-health center to launch on other continents.
