Founder Profile : Gabriel Halimi, CEO — Flo Technologies

Flo Technologies came in to the 2017 Accelerator as the pick of the applicants in the home leak detection and water monitoring space, and over the year have gone from strength to strength. Their units are so good they’re in the homes of 50% of the Imagine H2O team, and trust us, that’s a vote of confidence. Gabe and Aisling, Flo’s head of partnerships, have been a joy to work with this year.

Gabe, always a pleasure — introduce yourself to the IH2O Universe
I’m Gabe Halimi, the CEO/co-Founder of Flo. Flo is a first of its kind water control and monitoring service that proactively detects microleaks and other vulnerabilities anywhere in a home water system, protecting the home, promoting maintenance and empowering conservation.

Where did you get the idea for Flo Technologies?
The inventor of Flo is my father and co-founder, Henry Halimi. Henry has over 25 years of experience as a fluid mechanics engineer, plumbing manufacturer, and inventor. After years of experience with plumbing and after suffering a catastrophic plumbing failure in his own home, he invented Flo to help prevent such issues. It’s been so valuable working to solve a problem that he has been so close to.

What’s the value you provide for your customer?
We proactively monitor and control home water to prevent loss… loss of water due to leaks, loss of time and financial loss due to water damage. With Flo, the customer never misses a drip. The feedback from our initial customers has been excellent, and we’re pretty proud of our user interface and experience on the app. The team have done a superb job of harmonizing software and hardware.

Home leak detection is a crowded space — why are you positioned to win?
We are the only proactive solution. We’re not waiting for water to be uncontrollably running through the pipes to alert you. We’re proactively monitoring the system to help avoid plumbing failures in the first place, so you don’t get anywhere near the time, cost and inconvenience of experiencing a leak.

What’s the biggest thing being a founder has taught you?
Be aggressive and set the team up for success. As founders, we set the tone for the company, so act accordingly.

What’s best advice you have received on creating a physical product?
Test your hardware over and over and over again. Expect that there will be issues. The clue’s in the name — hardware is hard, so test until you’re blue in the face, then test some more.

Sum up your IH2O experience in 3 words.
Ambassadors to Waterworld (the actual one, not the Kevin Costner one)

UPDATE: Nov 21, 2017: San Antonio-based USAA invested an undisclosed amount in Los Angeles-based Flo Technologies Inc., for its Series A round, the company announced. USAA invests in LA tech startup that detects leaky pipes