Backing Aqua Ubique to bring safe water to more communities

About Aqua Ubique and Sefa 

• Aqua Ubique is a veteran-owned social enterprise using atmospheric water generation technology to create safe drinking water from air.  

• Through Backing the Bold, Sefa worked with Aqua Ubique on its financial model, Theory of Change, impact register and marketing strategy, before providing a $130,000 loan. 

• The finance helped separate personal and business debt and fund the next batch of water-generating machines.  

• Aqua Ubique now has nine Drop 4 Drop impact machines supporting more than 350 people in Cherbourg, QLD, made possible as its base of paying customers has grown.  

• Its total fleet has generated more than 200,000 litres of water since it began and eliminated over 13,200 15L plastic bottles. 

When Shannon & Dannii Lemanski joined the Backing the Bold program, Aqua Ubique already had traction, a product they believed in and a clear reason for building the business. 

What it didn’t yet have were some of the foundations the co-founders needed to make confident decisions about growing their business.

“We knew our unit economics were good, but we didn’t have a cash flow forecast. We didn’t have a marketing plan. we’d never heard of a Theory of Change.” shares Shannon.

Like many founders getting an early-stage business off the ground, Shannon & Dannii had found the money where they could, including taking on debt personally at high interest rates. So the option of a capital injection from the program arrived at the ideal time.

Knowing what you can afford to take on 

Having a financial model also changed the company’s relationship with finance. 

“We took on a lot more debt than we thought we would have been comfortable [with] because we can now actually have a look at the forecast and go, okay, we won’t lose the house, so crack on.” Dannii says.

Aqua Ubique ultimately drew down $130,000 through Backing the Bold, restructuring company debts out of the pair's personal names and funding its next batch of machines. 

It helped move Aqua Ubique, as Shannon puts it, from “this really scrappy company that was probably closer to a sole trader to an actual proper functioning company”.  

What another machine really means 

Many of us would assume that access to drinking water is a given in Australia. But around two million Australians still don’t have access to safe drinking water, including people living less than three hours from Brisbane. 

As Aqua Ubique has won more paying customers, its Drop 4 Drop model has allowed it to install more machines in communities that need them. It entered Backing the Bold with two impact machines in place. Today, there are nine supporting more than 350 people in Cherbourg.  

Shannon remembers watching a four-year-old girl at a Cherbourg daycare centre encounter one of the first machines Aqua Ubique installed there. She watched for a few minutes, then picked up a cup, pushed the button and poured herself a cold glass of safe drinking water. The centre’s director told Shannon it was the first time she had been able to do that for herself. 

At the centre, the tap water wasn’t safe for the children to drink, while bottled water was expensive. Dannii says some children were arriving at daycare with soft drink in their bottles because it was cheaper than buying bottled water. Large water dispensers weren’t a simple solution either, as they had to be kept away from young children because they could topple over and injure them. 

The couple’s own daughter was four at the time. 

“How can my daughter pour a glass of water here at home without an issue? But two and a half hours away, an Australian girl... who’s the same age can’t pour a safe glass of water?” 

Needing less capital to create more impact 

Before Backing the Bold, Shannon expected Aqua Ubique would need to borrow to fund each new batch of machines. The financial modelling showed him how customer finance could fund more of that growth instead. He estimates Aqua Ubique could carry around $200,000 less debt in five years while putting the same number of machines into the field.  

For Dannii, that’s why capability building and capital work so well together. 

“Just giving organisations money doesn’t fix the problem. It’ll mask some of the symptoms but to generate the long-term sustainable change that everybody wants, you need both.” 

Aqua Ubique has added two team members, is developing better ways to capture data from its machines and is working with a university on its next generation of technology. It is also back in conversation with Sefa as its working capital needs change.  

The business is still changing quickly. But Shannon and Dannii now have a clearer view of what the business can afford, where to invest and how to keep growing its impact.