PITCH & PEOPLE Folge 19: Bellaria
Sometimes good business ideas don’t emerge in the office, not in an incubator, and not at a pitch event. But on the toilet. Or rather: at very many toilet visits. That’s exactly where the founder story of Giuseppe Leo begins. We spoke with the ex-Bayern player in our video podcast Pitch & People.
The former professional footballer knows the phenomenon all too well: Before matches, everyone needs to go. Nervousness, adrenaline, and suddenly 30 to 40 players and coaches are queuing up for at most three or four toilets. What follows are situations that are rarely discussed, but everyone knows them. Unpleasant odors included. Giuseppe Leo, founder of Bellaria, explains in our video podcast Pitch & People:
“Before the matches you always have to go to the toilet. That’s natural when you’re nervous”.
And it was precisely these odors that gave the 31-year-old an idea. Leo spent thirteen years in the youth teams of FC Bayern Munich and later also played in the 2nd Bundesliga and occasionally in the 1st League for FC Ingolstadt. Competitive sports shaped his daily life, including the same routines before matches. Because where everyone else just wanted to get out quickly, Leo began to think.
From the quiet place to a business idea
The idea for the Aircube, the core product of his startup Bellaria, emerged during his active football career, while traveling, in changing rooms, in the everyday life of professional sports. Again and again the same situations, again and again the same question that Leo asked himself:
“We fly to the moon, we develop artificial intelligence, but for the everyday, where we all have to sit on toilets, there’s still no solution for that”.
When match operations ceased during the Corona pandemic, Leo suddenly had time. Instead of waiting, he began to experiment. Without technical knowledge, with parts from the hardware store and a vacuum filter, he built his first prototype. Not perfect, but functional enough to keep thinking.
Giuseppe Leo (*January 30, 1995 in Munich) is a German-Italian entrepreneur and founder of Bellaria Technology GmbH, the startup behind the toilet odor neutralizer Aircube. Before Leo became an entrepreneur, he was a professional footballer: he began his career in the youth department of FC Bayern Munich, reaching the second team squad there, later played for FC Ingolstadt’s first team in the Bundesliga as well as for Karlsruher SC in the 3rd League. Subsequently, he moved abroad to FC Aarau in the Swiss Challenge League. A torn cruciate ligament ended his active football career prematurely.
Founding alone, risking everything
Leo founded Bellaria alone. Not because he necessarily wanted to, but because there was no one in his environment who thought about startups. Football was the center of attention, not entrepreneurship. So he went the path alone, invested all his savings from his football days into the idea, and deliberately chose to take the full risk.
He sought support only later: through intensive research and eventually through an engineer from Berlin with whom he further developed the technology. Step by step, the Aircube as it exists today was created.
How the Aircube works
The Aircube is mounted directly at the toilet. During use, the battery-powered device immediately sucks up odors, neutralizes them inside using a patented filter system, before they spread throughout the room.
“You could theoretically sit on the toilet with the door open and no one would know”.
After use, the toilet interior is additionally ionized and cleaned. For Leo, odor neutralization in particular is the key added value and the main reason why customers choose the product.
The breakthrough on “Die Höhle der Löwen”
The major turning point came with his appearance on “Die Höhle der Löwen”. Leo secured a deal with Karsten Maschmeyer: 200,000 euros for 15 percent. For him, the key factor was less the capital than the sparring partner. He wanted someone who brings experience, is trustworthy, and provides impulses without taking control out of his hands.
The gamble paid off. After the broadcast, Bellaria was sold out within seven minutes. In the first 40 days, over 9,000 orders came in. The solo founder became a four-person team that has since been dealing with growth, supply chains, and customer service.
The vision
Toilets are not a glamorous topic. Leo knows that too. But that’s exactly where he sees the opportunity. Little competition, a universal problem, and a market that has seen little innovation so far.
His vision: Bellaria products should become the standard on toilets, private and public. With the planned Airseat, a version of the technology integrated into the toilet seat, he wants to further expand this ambition.
