How this innovative fabric treatment service enables clothes to protect health
Aimed at promoting people’s well-being amid the coronavirus pandemic, Delhi-based Faibr-x offers a unique fabric treatment service that claims to make clothes and home linen free of bacteria and viruses.
One way to keep the dreaded coronavirus at bay is by constantly washing hands and using sanitisers. But what about the clothes we wear? Delhi-based attempted to answer this question with its revolutionary nanotechnology-reliant dry-cleaning service , launched in 2020.
“Clothes are the only things constantly in touch with our body. With our advanced fabric therapy, we can upgrade any fabric into anti-microbial, anti-viral, anti-odour, insect-repellent, immunity-boosting, and temperature-controlling clothes. All these therapies have a positive impact on the health of the individual wearing or coming in contact with clothes. All our cloth therapies are tested by international testing agencies and are safe for human health,” Sasha Bose, CEO and Co-founder of Nanochemiqs, explains to YSWeekender.
The idea
The team consists of passionate entrepreneurs from various backgrounds. Sasha is a law graduate from Indian Law School, Pune and his co-founder, Gaurav K, has been associated with the chemical industry for a long time. Collectively, they have amassed a vast corporate experience, enabling them to run a successful and commercially viable business. Their company is ISO certified and is also a DPIIT recognised startup.
The innovative idea of Faibr-x was conceived by the team back in 2018, however, it came to fruition only in 2020. Sasha shares that since they always wanted to bring the ‘X’ factor to the business, the name ‘Faibr-x’ fit well.
“Our vision is to provide health benefits and wellness to people through fabrics. Through our patent-pending products, we are capable of providing advanced solutions that will help to build stronger immunity levels and overall wellness of individuals,” says Sasha, explaining the idea behind this service.
When they started work on their product, their aim was to build something that could promote people’s well-being. They knew that one way to do this was by offering technology that would keep regular clothes free of microbes, viruses, and bacteria, and, in turn, reduce the incredible bio-waste hazard created by medical PPE kits, gloves, and masks.
“We all use masks to protect ourselves against COVID-19, but do we ever check if the mask we are buying is really effective in stopping the virus from spreading? As consumers, do we have access to any testing certificate of these masks? This is a major concern that Faibr-x addresses – by turning any fabric mask into an anti-viral mask with over 99 percent efficacy in reducing the viral load and stopping the spread of the virus. For those who need proof of our promise, we can provide certificates issued by a NABL-accredited lab that can be accessed using any smartphone,” shares Sasha.
He says that the fabric can also be used to prevent mosquito-borne diseases. Nanochemiqs has developed a particular process keeping the protection of children and senior citizens from malaria and other vector-borne diseases in mind. This particular service, when applied to clothes of any fabric, works as a mosquito repellent, keeping them at bay for a minimum period of 10 washes. They are also capable of scaling this number to over 1,000 washes, depending on the type of cloth.
Gaurav K and Sasha Bose, Co-founders, Nanochemiqs and Faibr-x
How it works
Dry-cleaning or laundry services in India provide only a surface cleaning of clothes and linen. There is no option in retail services for specialised treatment of fabrics, linen, sportswear, or undergarments.
The services provided by Faibr-x claim to solve this problem. Sasha says, “We are not laundry or dry-clean house. Faibr-x offers specialised treatment to daily routine clothes, linen, upholstery, or any other type of fabric. The specialised treatment service is a valuable addition to a conventional laundry market and is a unique service only we offer.”
Faibr-x has on-ground dry-clean and laundry partners for sales and business generation. People drop off their clothes at a collection point at one of these cleaning services, from where they are daily collected by the Faibr-x team. Then the startup processes them according to the requirements of the customer and returns them to the partner, in line with their delivery schedule. Once this is done, the partner service processes the materials for dry cleaning or laundry, as per their existing standard processes. People can access their services either by visiting any of the channel partner stores or by calling and emailing them.
The Faibr-x special treatment services include anti-viral and anti-microbial treatment that is effective in killing all kinds of bacteria, germs and virus, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus by 99.95 percent. It claims to have anti-stain and anti-odour technology specially designed for kid’s school uniforms, workers casuals, formal clothing, linen, premium silk, and other routine garments.
It also offers mosquito-repellent for children’s clothing, defence personnel and travellers; temperature-control and air purification for linen, carpets, upholstery, car seat covers, quilts and blankets; fire-protection for worker’s uniforms, defence uniforms, and other fabrics that are prone to catching fire; and immunity-boosting technology designed for kids, the elderly, defence personnel and medical patients.
Aimed at mass marketing, the prices begin from Rs 99 for a shirt.
The growth story
This Delhi-based brand was launched with an initial investment of around Rs 30-35 lakh.
Since its inception, they have had a turnover above Rs 1.5 crore. The venture is already bootstrapped.
Sasha explains, “As of now, we are the leading and only company to provide this kind of service in India and Asia. While doing our research, we became aware that there is a huge gap in the market. Fortunately, the pandemic helped us introduce our technology at an affordable cost.”
Currently only catering to Delhi-NCR, they have plans to expand across the country soon, beginning with Tier-I and II cities. They will also be adding more services to their repertoire, as they expand.
Sasha points out that though there is a growing demand for these niche services in India, many others need detailed explanations about their product and benefits. However, the team at Faibr-x is scaling these challenges.
“Since the beginning of time, mankind has used clothes for three basic purposes - covering their bodies, protecting themselves from the weather, and for fashion. We have now redefined the purpose of clothes entirely, ensuring they can now be used for overall health and wellness and also to protect one’s life against the deadly virus, microbes and other insects,” Sasha signs off.
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Edited by Kanishk Singh