Over 1 million plastic water bottles are purchased every minute in the world. That computes to 500 billion per year, and more than 90 percent are not recycled. Imagine if we could make water out of thin air and eliminate all that waste in our environment, and all the microplastics we are ingesting when we drink from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) containers.
This is exactly the thought Cody Soodeen had when, as an architecture student at the University of Hartford, he was sitting in a biomimicry class. Biomimicry is the science of how we can learn from nature to solve complex human problems sustainably. “They show a video about this beetle in the Namib Desert that climbs up a big sand dune, does a handstand and sticks its butt up in the air,” recounts Greenwich native Bill Irvine, who is now Soodeen’s business partner. “There are gusts of wind coming off the Atlantic with water in it. And this beetle, using hydrophilic bumps and hydrophobic troughs in its shell, condenses the water and drinks it. That was Cody’s aha moment.”
The Stenocara gracilipes, or Namib Desert beetle, lent part of its name to the company that evolved out of that revelatory moment: Kara Water. The logo alludes to the critter’s magnificently designed shell. Soodeen, having grown up on well water in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, and suffered through his family getting sick from contaminated water, was particularly primed for this epiphany. Spooked by the illness, his family had shifted to drinking entirely bottled water. They weren’t alone. “It turns out that like 66 million Americans will only drink bottled water,” says Irvine.
Kara Water’s new Kara Pod satisfies all your water and coffee needs without taking up much counter space or emptying your wallet.
THE GREENWICH CONNECTION
Having an idea is one thing; creating the machine that can replicate a beetle’s ingenuity and then turning it into a successful business is another. That’s where Irvine and his childhood pals from Cat Rock Road come into the picture.
“I’d been working in finance and ended up going to Columbia Business School for my executive MBA. I took some classes on entrepreneurship, as well as venture investing, and helped out one of my Johns Hopkins friends,” explains Irvine, who attended Johns Hopkins for undergrad. “He had an idea that uses genetic engineering of rare bacteria that can eat sulfur for energy and breathe in carbon dioxide and create useful byproducts. I developed a passion for investing in high-impact companies and mentoring future entrepreneurs.”
Irvine met Soodeen in 2019 at Cleantech Open, “the largest clean-tech accelerator in North America,” says Irvine.
Enthralled by his water concept, Irvine began mentoring Soodeen. “It was volunteer, because I’ve always learned, and had the motto, that the best return on life is from doing things for unconditional service,” says Irvine, who also sits on boards for CT Premier Water Club and Alpha-1 Foundation. Irvine played water polo for Greenwich and calls his coach (and multivariable calculus teacher) Terry Lowe “a legend.” His late mother, Bettina, suffered from Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
“My mom got really sick when I was like 11 years old,” says Irvine. “Seeing her stand up and bring oxygen tanks in tow to set national health policy, watching her determination and resilience and my dad’s support—that really gave me some great leaders to look up to.”
When Peabody- and Emmy-winning former CNN producer Harrison Bohrman heard what his childhood friend Bill was up to, he knew Kara Water was going to make a big splash.
“Water is the most important thing on Earth, if not the universe. So, when he told me this, my jaw dropped,” says Bohrman. “You know there are going to be wars fought over water. We can actually harvest it from the air around us? That blew my mind.”
Not surprisingly, Bohrman had grown disenchanted with journalism in recent years. “My grandfather was a journalist and reporter, and my dad was also,” says Bohrman. “Bill can even speak to this; we had nine televisions in my living room, because my dad needed every single news station on 24/7. I grew up watching every network non-stop. It has been painful seeing what has happened. One of the reasons why I walked away was that I wanted to produce the first science and technology presidential debate, basically a climate debate. I felt like people really cared about that, but I couldn’t get the networks or the politicians to all agree to it.”
With the push of a button, Kara Pure dispenses water that tastes like it flows from a Rocky Mountain spring, but it actually comes from the air in your house.
The inner workings of Kara Pure are highly complex. The water pulled from the air is boiled, filtered and mineralized.
Cody Soodeen at CES Las Vegas 2025 holding the 2025 CES Innovation Award and USA TODAY’s 50 Top Picks for CES 2025 Award
Kara Pod is the world’s first self-refilling coffee machine. Using air-to-water technology, it’s a dual-purpose countertop drinking water dispenser and coffee machine. It lets users cut the cord on tap and bottled water by transforming pure air into 13 cups of clean drinking water or freshly brewed coffee every 24 hours.
Bohrman also has a background in filmmaking, and his fondest childhood memory is “going to movies with Bill, back when people went to movie theaters, and laughing and talking about ideas. Admiring these filmmakers and kind of dreaming and brainstorming while watching movies with your friends is just the best time. I grew up thinking TV and film were my passion. After my twenties and thirties, it evolved to me realizing it’s not even just the film; it’s just I love ideas and execution and stories.”
In 2023, Bohrman signed on as vice president of Kara Water, heading up business development, creative and marketing. “Greenwich seems to be a place with a blend of tight community and big expectations,” comments Soodeen. “Bill and Harrison have stayed connected to where they’re from, but they’re also driven to think beyond their zip code. Harrison is a visionary who delivers. He sees problems and opportunities before others can, and he has the versatility and business instincts to roll up his sleeves and get things done at the highest level.”
From the Weather Channel to the Today Show, Bohrman is spreading the story of the magical machine that turns air into water.
Win Bates, another member of the boys’ “Cat Rock crew,” who played water polo with Irvine at Greenwich High (both were Class of 2002) and Johns Hopkins, has directed many of Kara Water’s videos. “It’s always fun working on something you believe in,” comments Bates. “Kara Pure is a great product with an incredible mission. Getting to work with friends from pre-school is a bonus.”
Paul Cortese, another childhood pal, has a Kara Water dispenser at his gym in town, In Forma. “We have one up at Val’s Liquor,” says Irvine, while giving a demonstration of the Kara Pure at In Forma. “My friend Jeb, who owns the store, put it there, and he invited me to come promote it at Sam Bridge’s Reindeer Festival. There’s this really cute clip that we came up with: ‘Santa … Kara Water … Believe.’”
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The sleek, silver Kara Pure machine stands out among the barbells and cardio equipment at In Forma gym in Greenwich. Its futuristic design is cool, with an elegant touch—a certain never-let-’em-see-you-sweat je-ne-sais-quoi. During water production, a small fan whirs; it’s not loud enough to notice in a gym, nor probably in a kitchen, unless one is meditating nearby. In that case, the white noise may clear the mind anyway.
“So, the air comes through here and hits a filter,” explains Irvine, pointing to holes on the side of the dispenser. “Then there’s a stone called a desiccant, in the shape of a wheel, that rotates and captures the moisture in the air by absorbing the water. We then boil that water off, dehydrating the stone and killing any viruses and bacteria, creating distilled water. The air then exits on this side. The water goes into a tank. We then have a UV filter. We mineralize the water. We have an ultra filtration filter and copper and silicone food-grade piping, so there’s no plastic, and a recirculation loop, because you’ve got to keep water moving.”
The result is two and a half gallons per day of 9.2+ pH alkaline mineral water—cold, hot or room temperature—that tastes like it came from a Rocky Mountain spring. Irvine coined “air to water” for the company, and it’s catching on.
“Having Kara Pure at the gym has been a hit,” says Cortese. “It’s a conversation starter, clients love the taste, and it feels good supporting my friends on their mission. Plus, Kara Pure looks sleek in the space.”
Naysayers on Reddit hear about a machine that turns air into water and comment, “Oh, sure, that’s just like drinking the water from your dehumidifier.”
Considering all the steps Irvine just detailed, it certainly is not. (It also will not have a noticeable effect on the humidity of a room unless it is a small space.) Aside from the filtering, boiling and purification of the water, Kara Pure is different in that it works in any climate: in Aspen, Vegas (where Bohrman currently lives) or in single digits in Greenwich. “Dehumidification requires 35 percent relative humidity,” explains Irvine. Kara Pure can work in the desert … as long as there is electricity. The innovative team is brainstorming on a system that would work with solar panels, which would be a game- changer globally.
Both the Kara Pod (2025) and the Kara Pure (2022) won Best Invention awards from TIME. Winning more than one TIME award put Kara Water in company with brands like Apple and Google.
Bill Irvine with the 2026 Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved Community Technological Innovation Award
The current buyers of Kara Pure, Kara Pure 2 (the latest model of the larger dispenser), and the new Kara Pod (which looks like a Nespresso machine, dispenses a gallon of water a day and will brew your coffee, too) are generally bottled water drinkers.
“They are spending over a thousand dollars a year on bottled water,” says Irvine. “They decided to take what I call the ‘red pill’ in The Matrix when it comes to water.” What they may not realize is that “50 percent of bottled water is municipal water repackaged,” he says.
Even in Greenwich, press has come out about bad water. News broke in 2024 of elevated levels of toxic PFAs turning up in Backcountry well water and in Parkway School’s water supply.
Some customers are turning to Kara so they don’t have to store and heave five-gallon water jugs. “One of our customers had his whole garage filled up with bottled water, just in case, because they live in Arizona. Since he’s bought a Kara Pure, he was able to clear out the garage,” says Irvine.
The Kara Pod runs $799 on karawater.com (reserving on Indiegogo reduces the price by 43 percent), and the Kara Pure 2 is $4,899 (with a $408/month 12-month payment-plan option). The units require filter changes a few times a year, with filters running about $30 (Kara Pod) to $129 (Kara Pure). For the Kara Pod, the company plans to “release private-label biodegradable Nespresso- compatible pods,” says Irvine.
THE BIG PICTURE
“By 2050, we want to reach over a billion people with water beverage access, reduce or eliminate 10 billion plastic bottles and eliminate over 100 million tons of CO2 from the beverage supply chain,” says Irvine. “There’s no reason why we should be shipping bottled water from Southeast Asia to the U.S. or even over any body of water.” He is excited that the company has contracted with “nine to ten big-box stores,” so Kara products will be more readily available beyond the Internet. Irvine adds, “Our vision is that in 10 years, over 50 percent of the household appliances using water will use a decentralized air-to-water technology.”
Kara Water has received two TIME “Best Inventions” honors, for the Kara Pure and Kara Pod. In February, Kara Water was honored by Bernice King and The King Center with the 2026 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Beloved Community Technological Innovation Award” for its mission to make air-to-water technology more accessible to people around the world. Bernice King praised the company: “Thank you, Cody Soodeen and Kara Water, for your innovation in the interest of good.”
Soodeen says, “The goal isn’t just to build a cool device; it’s to help redefine clean water access. Water is the most important substance on Earth, and it’s incredible that we now have the technology to pull clean drinking water right out of thin air.”
Irvine, who lives with his wife and three kids in Riverside, comments, “I was really happy to tell my kids Martin Luther King’s daughter selected us as the technology innovation that’s best aligned with her dad’s vision and mission. There’s this tangible thing that my kids get to see that shows we are in this for impact. We have Kara Pures at an orphanage in Sierra Leone. We’re working on getting one to Ghana to a Pencils of Promise location, where they teach the teachers before they go out to the schools. The founder, Adam Braun, was actually on my bus route.”
It all trickles back to Greenwich.
Visit: karawater.com • Follow: @karawaterinc