Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan, drummer Steve Gadd and jazz pianist Dave Brubeck share space with Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford as Shakeel Avadhany’s idols on his personal website.
No wonder then music is as integral a part of him as is the shock absorber under development by Levant Power Corp, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm he co-founded in January 2008.
“I am a multi-instrumentalist but drumming is my forte,” claims Avadhany, chief executive of Levant.
He seems to be in an enviable position where he does not have to choose between his two passions. “I make the time for music. I played even last weekend,” says Avadhany, a trained tabla player.
His felicity with percussion aside, Avadhany’s start-up has generated a lot of interest among the American media and industry alike for its shock absorbers called GenShocks, which generate power every time a car hits a bump or a pothole.
The electricity thus generated can be used to power on-board devices like radio, windscreen wipers and headlights. Avadhany says GenShocks can result in fuel savings of anywhere between 1-6% depending on the vehicle and terrain. The company has sent some prototypes of the shock absorber to be tested by the US military in its combat vehicles.
“We are also working with auto manufacturers and auto parts suppliers and should commercially launch GenShocks by the third quarter of 2011,” Avadhany says. Though GenShocks will be pricier than its counterparts, Avadhany says the breakeven time on the customer’s investment is 18-20 months and that the product pays for itself.
Levant, derived from the Latin word ‘levare’ meaning to raise or to lift, was founded by Avadhany along with his college-mates Zackary M Anderson and Zachary Jackowski on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus, where they all trained to be engineers. Anderson is chief operating officer and Jackowski chief technology officer at Levant.
The company has received two rounds of funding, in June 2009 and March this year, but Avadhany is loath to reveal how much or who the investors are, for reasons of confidentiality. “The timing couldn’t be better, there is a huge market appetite for clean technology,” he says.
Though the company’s initial focus will be the North American market, the car manufacturers Levant partners with have operations in India, says Avadhany, whose parents hail from near Mysore.
While it’s best left to time (or the market) to decide the fate of GenShocks, Avadhany’s words from his portal best describe the spirit of Levant and its founders: “I eagerly anticipate the next time a novel idea convinces me.”
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