How Clensta is Using the Waterless Tech to Take Personal Care Industry by Storm
How Clensta is Using the Waterless Tech to Take Personal Care Industry by Storm

We live in a country where water is in short supply, to the point where people cannot always access basic necessities like hygiene. After extensive discussions with specialists, Puneet Gupta, Founder, and CEO, Clensta realized that the key causes for lack of access to something as basic as cleanliness are, directly or indirectly, the availability of water or an individual's living conditions.

This inspired him to create a line of waterless personal hygiene products in order to make personal hygiene available to everyone, everywhere leading to the idea of Clensta. 

“I firmly believe that someone's financial situation and living conditions should not determine the dignity of their life. I wanted to ensure that everyone, from military personnel living in harsh weather conditions to people living in areas with acute water shortages to pregnant mothers and hospital patients, was safe,”

The brand is currently available in the market with homecare and personal care. Its waterless personal hygiene products aim to make hygiene accessible to everyone, everywhere. Later, it launched India’s first innovative homecare solution with smart refills and this ingenious range created with EBDC technology ensures effective cleaning, disinfection, and deodorization, while reducing product cost and single-use plastic. And one of its latest launches includes a new gender-neutral range of personal care products. Developed using our patented STAR technology with red aloe vera as the principal ingredient, which is 22 times more powerful than the commonly available green aloe vera.

The brand is planning to foray into categories such as kid’s and pet’s personal hygiene/care under Clensta - the house of brands – as Kidsta and Petsta. It is also planning to segregate the personal and home care category as Skinsta (for skin care products for men and women), Hairsta (for hair care products for men and women), and Homsta (for home care products).

Omnichannel Strategy

Clensta has now developed a comprehensive range of products, all of which follow the principle of the better way, in that they provide alternatives that can improve a consumer’s life. This includes an initial waterless portfolio, new homecare, skincare, and hair care range, as well as the upcoming kid care, pet care, and wellness range.

“However, each product has a distinct market fitment. To that end, we are going to go all out to capture the D2C market with our new range of personal care and home care products; on our own platform and on marketplaces. We will also continuously expand the presence of this portfolio in modern and general trade retail formats,” he asserted.

“We believe that the waterless portfolio is more of a B2B play, especially in the international market. We have received several approvals such as US FDA registration, NATO approval, and Saudi FDA registration that will help us chase the same,” he further added.

From time to time, the brand is exploring partnerships with large Indian companies where it can act as a product incubator while they can partner with it for marketing and growth.

Betting Big on Sustainability

With environmental problems like climate change and pollution posing another major threat to the overall landscape, companies across the world need to re-evaluate their business strategy in order to safeguard themselves against any other catastrophe in the future. Operational processes tend to cause significant harm to the environment, which tends to go unnoticed quite often. Hence, it is absolutely paramount to also focus on optimizing operational processes.  

‘Clensta’s primary aim is to create eco-friendly products that contribute toward a better world. The plastic waste footprint is a major threat to our environment and Clensta is developing and investing in systems and processes to mitigate the challenges and consciously reduce the use of plastic. The brand has an ingenious range of homecare solutions with smart concentrates that reduce single-use of plastic. By 2030, Clensta aims to eliminate over 2 lakh plastic bottles per month, dumped otherwise at landfills and water bodies. Our concentrated efforts toward sustainability have earned us various awards and honors on the national and global front, including BIRAC’s prestigious BIG grant. We have a strategic tie-up with Cipla and have already raised Series-A funding. We have also filed a claim in India Book of Record for filing a maximum number of patents in one day,” he explained.

Technology Integration

Technology is the fundamental and important aspect of business in today’s world. Manufacturing, communication, purchasing, sales, and advertising are now simpler and more successful for firms thanks to technology, it provides a variety of methods to promote development and information exchange, helps scale the business at a faster pace, and helps to deal with every day's dynamic things. 

“In today’s digital world, consumers are self-aware and intelligent, they would only spend on things that make sense to them, therefore, it is essential to have a rationale behind every product and to help the customers self-diagnose, we are looking to innovate by adding AI tools which can help customers and get the right products/ treatments,” he stated.

“Clensta has a unique collaboration with the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi (IITD). Clensta now has 5 technologies and 21 patents. Waterless technology-based body bath and shampoo, EBDC technology-based smart refills such as pigeon repellent, car shampoo, and room freshener with germ protection formula, to mention a few. We have unfettered access to the advanced instrumentation facility at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD). Our collaboration is bolstered further by the presence of a strong team led by Professor Anurag Singh Rathore, Faculty at the Department of Chemical Engineering, as a scientific adviser and Director to provide excellent assistance for the development of novel products,” he further added.

Future Plans

Clensta’s topline currently stands at Rs 18 crore. Its vision is that in 5 years, it will have 5 products, covering 5 crore households in India, and raising Rs 500 crore GMV/quarter.

“Going ahead, we plan to roll out several products in the personal care range. We aim to offer products in several new categories keeping the needs of our customers in mind. This year, with our new product portfolio in place and launches planned every few weeks, we are looking at a well-combined revenue,” he said.

“Clensta intends to expand both domestically and globally in the near future. We intend to develop our waterless portfolio in worldwide markets and launch a broad range of goods in the categories of homecare, skincare, hair care, children's care, pet care, and wellness. Clensta will transform from a single brand to an umbrella brand spanning multiple categories with innovative and market-first items across its entire portfolio,” he added.

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