The idea came about in winter 2011 when two Sardinian students at the University of Pisa, intent on saving money on gas bills, began to look for a more inexpensive solution to heat their home. Today that idea has turned into an enterprise or more precisely into the startup Enki Stove based in Leghorn, which designs, produces and sells ‘pyrolytic burners’, systems based on innovative technology which generate energy and heat from common biomass fuels (pellets, wood, twigs, pine cones) minimizing the production of harmful gases which pollute or are responsible for the greenhouse effect. Thanks to two crowdfunding campaigns, two lines of production have already come onto the market, Enki Stove Uno and Wild. The former includes three systems for cooking and outdoor heating while the latter has two models of biomass fuelled camp stoves.
“The technology behind all the Enki Stove products is protected by two patents and is the optimization of a pre-existing process called ‘open-system pyrolysis’,” explains Ivan Mura, the product designer and an aerospace engineering student at the University of Pisa who first had the idea. “I became aware of this process thanks to my passion for technology and the notions I learnt at university. After months of trials and experiments, and with the technical consultation from my friend Davide Nughes (an electronic technician now in charge of IT at Enki Stove), I was finally able to construct a device which satisfied my requirements: an efficient, stable, low-cost source of heat which was easy to use and did not produce harmful fumes throughout the entire process.”
Shortly after having seen the device at work, a number of people began to ask for a similar product for cooking or heating. At that point, Ivan and Davide realized they were in possession of such a useful and precious piece of technology that they decided to turn the idea into a business and included other friends in the project.
These friends are now members of the Enki Stove team: Gianluca Ricciardi, marketing manager, with a degree in Information Science and Technologies, Andrea Moretti, public relations manager, specializing in Business Communications at the University of Pisa and Simone Pisci, graphic designer.
“The Enki Stove systems transform biomass fuel by exploiting the gas derived from the decomposition of the same fuel to produce the energy necessary for the process,” explains Ivan. “This optimization is guaranteed by a particular geometric conformation of the combustion chamber, together with an electronic system which manages and modulates the flux of gas inside the chamber, making the pyrolysis stable, safe and smokeless as well as user friendly for the consumer. This technology is perfect for the design of outdoor kitchens, barbecues and camp stoves, but it could also be developed further for indoor heating.”
The students’ project has undergone a lengthy journey. Precious help came from Alessandro Capocchi, Andrea’s professor, who put them in touch with Lorna Vatta, a business angel with the SAMBA association, the Angel Investing Club founded by ex-students of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, who led the Enki Stove team on an intense course of business development and acceleration.
Subsequently, Enki Stove participated in the CNRxEXPO at the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Milan, where it received the ‘best pyrolytic technology’ award. Finally, last June, the startup participated in the Summer School in ‘Advanced Innovation Methods’ organized by the University of Pisa as part of the ENDuRE project.
In order to expand the financial shareholding and the liaisons activated by the investment club, SAMBA offered the Enki Stove team an equity crowdfunding campaign on the StarsUp portal. The collection ended positively a month before time, raising 240 thousand euros in exchange for a 34% participation in the capital of 41 new business partners. The capital raised was used to structure the society and begin the production of the two lines. For the launch of the latest line Wild, the company has decided to lead a campaign on another crowdfunding portal, Kickstarter, which has obtained excellent results: 94 thousand euros raised in a month from 434 backers.