Stanford Business

MAY 2006


On the Pure Rocks


Sloan Fellows Audun Ingvarsson and Ravi Kailas trained for a marathon and ended up starting a water company.

Many a great idea has been hatched over a bottle of whiskey, but few survive till morning. Not so with “Vatn and Is,” brainchild of Sloan classmates Audun Ingvarsson and Ravi Kailas. Their product—pure, Icelandic water (vatn), packed in trays ready to freeze into ice (is) cubes—is on target for a summer 2006 launch.

Ingvarsson, from Iceland, and Kailas, from India, have more in common than meets the eye. Both are entrepreneurs and marathon runners, and both enjoy an aged single malt. The two met at Sloan orientation and a few days later got together for drinks. One sip was enough to discover that Americans “sully” their whiskey with frozen tap water. Talk turned to the purity of Icelandic water and before you could say “Pour me another,” Nordic Products LLC was born.

By winter quarter Ingvarsson and Kailas had begun talks with potential investors. “We are planning to give a slice of equity to the Business School. Stanford folks have been extremely generous with their time and referrals,” Kailas said, adding, “There are few other places where diverse people like us can meet up, form lasting friendships, try to build companies, and have a lot of fun doing so!”