This startup makes air-purifying paints to curb indoor pollution

To date, gush paints have been used in over 600 residential and 60 commercial projects in Singapore.

Singapore-based startup gush is creating sustainable paints and advanced building materials, as it seeks to help prevent health complications due to indoor air pollution.

“Shockingly, indoor air pollution can actually be up to 3-5x worse than outdoor air pollution. This is largely the result of the application of adhesives, and traditional building materials which can drastically increase the exposure of occupants to Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), as well as environmental sources - whereby high temperature and humidity levels can increase concentrations of airborne pollutants such as mould,” said co-founders Lester Leong and Ryan Lim.

Its flagship product, gush cair interior paint, is said to purify the air by eliminating 99.9% of bacteria, regulate humidity and prevent mould. It also has no volatile organic compounds (VOC) and releases negative ions which have health benefits such as neutralising free radicals and promoting blood circulation.

To date, gush paints have been used in more than 600 residential and 60 commercial projects in Singapore and the region, with most delivery rooms in Thomson Medical painted with their brand.

“Seeing that the walls have the biggest surface area around us and the fact that paint is in essence, a malleable chemical, we thought that there was a huge opportunity to leverage on the paint’s surface area to turn it into something that is not just decorative but also functional,” Leong and Lim said.

In July, gush secured $3m from Singapore mainboard-listed property group City Developments (CDL) in a pre-series A round which it seeks to use for R&D to explore new advanced building materials and branch out to other verticals beyond the building and construction industry.

It also plans to expand in the region where many countries such as Thailand, China, Indonesia and Malaysia are increasingly looking into ways to mitigate air pollution. In addition, they are looking to grow the team as gush’s business and operations expand.

Sherman Kwek, group CEO of City Developments (CDL), said that their investment in gush is in line with their focus on transformation to enhance CDL’s sustainable product offerings.