Former Apprentice contestant raises £1.5m to launch “world’s first” data-driven eco hand dryers

Clean tech firm SAVORTEX, founded by ex BBC Apprentice contestant Syed Ahmed, has raised £1.5m to develop and launch the “world’s first” range of data-driven, low carbon hand dryers.

The funding round saw involvement from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board and a group of high net worth investors in the clean technology sector.

Launched in 2007, SAVORTEX specialises in sustainable and energy saving solutions with its latest product, the EcoCurve Smart Dryer, said to offer the lowest carbon footprint per hand dry.

The dryer also has a data monitoring portal included which gathers data and then feeds back information about energy usage and costs to an online portal; “bringing big data capabilities to the washroom”.

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) is one of the first to agree to adopt the technology and SAVORTEX says the bank’s uptake will enable it save an alleged £30,000 and 14,000 tonnes of waste for each of its building, per year.

SAVORTEX founder Ahmed, who appeared in Series Two of the Apprentice show, said:

“There are 70 million washrooms globally. 20% of these are fitted with energy-hungry dryers but then when you factor in that a massive 80% are still using damaging and very expensive paper towels, you can see why we wanted to build something that disrupts this very inefficient market.”