Nebia, the Tim Cook-backed shower startup, sold to Mark Cuban's Brondell

Nebia made water-saving misting showerheads; Brondell, owned by Mark Cuban, makes bidets and air purifiers.

Nebia launched on Kickstarter in 2015 with nozzles that blast users with a fine, hurricanic mist while conserving up to 70% of the water a typical shower head sprays out, the startup claimed. Backers included Tim Cook, former Google boss Eric Schmidt's family office, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Fitbit co-founder James Park, Y Combinator and Stanford.

The product proved polarizing — it won fans but divided a TechCrunch newsroom over its unconventional take on a beloved ritual. Over the years Nebia dialed things down to win more customers, whittling projected water savings to around 50%. It estimated customers conserved over 500 million gallons of water and the equivalent of over 27 million kWh of energy, and its products, including those made with Moen, reached more than 100,000 homes.

Nebia sold to Brondell in January 2023; terms undisclosed. The Nebia name and water-saving nozzles live on, and the 15-person team, including co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon, joined Brondell.

A complete celebrity-hardware arc: Kickstarter fame, A-list backers, polarizing product, quiet sale to an adjacent-category buyer.

The core claim got iterated down from 70% to 50% — public evidence of a startup trimming its promise to widen its funnel.

Impact numbers are concrete if self-reported: 100,000+ homes, 500 million gallons, 27 GWh.

Consumer hardware can be too polarizing to scale: when your signature sensation divides bathrooms, you either blunt the product or sell to someone who values the tech.

The Nebia brand and nozzles continue under Brondell. The 15-person team, including both co-founders, joined Brondell; Parisi-Amon said he was working on future products there. Terms were not disclosed.