BackLumos Design Technology | While the sun shines
This Bangalore-based start-up is making solar-powered products that are practical and stylish
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Past life
For four years, Gandharv Bakshi, 30, worked for one of the pioneering hardware technology companies in India, Tejas Networks. But he wasn’t a hardware geek; he was a sales guy. At Tejas, he worked as product marketer for the company that makes optical networking products for the telecom industry. It offered experience that he once imagined would boost his own consulting career, which he embarked upon during his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He did not expect it to pave the way for working alongside his wife Lavina Mahbubani, who used to be a designer with Flying Machine, a fashion brand, and co-founded this company with him.
Eureka moment
At the IIM, Bakshi started a consulting business in 2010 with two fellow students, moonlighting between classes. As their sales representative, he travelled extensively while still in college. He encountered a problem common to peripatetic professionals: His mobile phone battery kept dying. “So that’s when I started carrying a solar charger," he says. “But when you travel, it’s not practical." It was bulky, and cumbersome to bring out to draw sunlight.
Mahbubani had a novel solution. Since Bakshi always carried a bag with him, “She said, ‘Why don’t I just stitch (the charger) into the bag for you?’" he recalls. “That’s how it started."
The pair began designing an early prototype of their product last year: a simple backpack with a tiny, rectangular panel patched to the back and connected to a mobile charger. They received positive feedback from some of Bakshi’s former colleagues at Tejas Networks. After finalizing a second version, they sold a few bags to “family and friends". Bakshi’s old boss at Tejas, who prefers not to be identified, served as an adviser and early investor, pouring ₹ 5 lakh into Lumos Design Technology.
With their third version, they brought the bags to market. Bums on the Saddle, a bicycle shop in southern Bangalore, agreed to sell some of the 35 backpacks in Lumos’ first batch. Avid cyclists, Bakshi says, are easy first customers as they track long distances away from power outlets with bags in tow.
Lumos received a significant lift in April when it was selected, along with three other start-ups, to inaugurate the Nasscom 10,000 Startups Programme as recipients of early investment rounds. Rajan Anandan, head of Google India and frequent angel investor, agreed to give ₹ 25 lakh to Lumos in exchange for a 10% stake.
Reality check
“I got rejected by every accelerator there is," Bakshi says. He and Mahbubani design products that combine two products (consumer and hardware), something Bangalore entrepreneurs or investors rarely venture into. Searching for funding and institutional support has been frustrating, Bakshi admits—at the Nasscom event, the deal with Anandan was that Lumos must bring in ₹ 60 lakh revenue before its next funding round, or his share would bump up to 15%. Manufacturers were nearly as sceptical as investors about working with a start-up selling new goods. Consumers too have been slow to come around to the backpacks, priced at ₹ 5,500. “It takes three months on the average to get the word out on a new category," says Bakshi.
Upon graduation, IIM, Bangalore offers a deferment period where newly anointed MBAs can pursue their own ventures before seeking school assistance with job placement. That window has now passed for Bakshi, and he is fine with it. “There’s no plan B as of now," he says. “It’s too early to think of that."
Secret sauce
While a few companies make similar products in the US and Western Europe, Lumos has the niche market to itself in India. It aims to keep adding features to its bag, and expand into other apparel, to make wearable solar a retail staple. Following interest from larger firms, Lumos is in discussions to sell the backpacks as part of corporate gift packages.
In a few months, they plan to launch an updated version of the backpack, with a display that tracks the solar power generated. Mahbubani is working on the design of a solar jacket, which they plan to unfurl soon as well. “Hopefully, every two months we should be able to launch something new," says Bakshi.
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