Period Underwear Founder Miki Agrawal Wants to Make Bidets Mainstream

Thinx underwear founder Miki Agrawalwho introduced the world to reusable period underwearhas her eyes set on her next big venture: bidets.

According to Fortune, the entrepreneur’s latest endeavor, Tushy, is a high-tech bidet attachment that would largely replace toilet paper in homes.

Agrawal has said that toilet paper is not only unhygienic"You're smearing poop up your backside and sitting in fecal matter all day long. That's literally what you're doing,"it’s unsustainable.

According to Scientific American, Americans use 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper per year, which results in the loss of 15 million trees.

Agrawal describes Tushy, which would be a $69 toilet attachment, as "the Nest meets iPhone of bidets." 

Investing in bidets would be Agrawal's third venture since creating Thinx in 2014; she launched ICON—like Thinx, but for women who struggle with incontinence—in 2015.

And while there's not yet a large amount of research to back up Agrawal's claim of bidets being more hygienic than toilet paper, the points she mentions have been enough to attract half a million dollars in seed funding. The deal has been led by venture capital firm Propulsion Capital, with participation from "angel investors" (the type who are happy to take a gamble on new projects and start-ups) Luke Sherwin and Neil Parikh of Casper and Zachary Werner of Poln.

Prior to investors, the project got its start with an Indiegogo campaign.

In terms of getting more American families to make the switch to bidets, Agrawal—who is of Indian and Japanese descen—hopes that they will be open to education.

"I think that's the way to change mindset and change culture—by using innovation, by using creative, beautiful, aesthetic design, and by talking about it in a way that's accessible and relatable," she says to Fortune.

H/t: Fortune