START: Leo Kankkunen, Founder & CEO, DAIVIN!: “Tankless Dive Gear - Breath Autonomy at Sea, Land & Space”

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A single glass of water holds about 20 hours of breathing

Leo Kankkunen is building the gear that pulls it out

Tankless diving technology that generates breathable oxygen directly from water.

It sounds impossible at first. Then you hear the physics...

Then you realize the implications stretch far past diving

Water is hydrogen and oxygen. Apply a DC current, swing away the electrons binding them, and you get the purest form of breathable gas.

The idea started with a simple frustration

Leo is an electrical engineer and a diver. Every dive exposed the same limits: Bulky tanks, Logistics, Safety risks, Cost, and Operational complexity.

Instead of accepting those constraints, he asked a question: Is there any way we could breathe like a fish?

That sent him down a rabbit hole into electrolysis

If water already contains oxygen, why haul tanks at all?

Why not generate breathable oxygen exactly where and when it's needed?

Enter DAIVIN! (YC W26) - Tankless dive gear that generates oxygen directly from the water around you. No tanks to haul, fill, or run out of.

But diving is just the wedge

Anywhere breathing depends on a tank, the tank sets the limit.

Crisis zones. High altitude rescue. Anywhere time is human lives.

Generate the oxygen on site, and there's no supply chain to depend on.

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🎙️ Leo Kankkunen, CEO & Founder, Daivin on Fondo START pod

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00:18 What Daivin is building and why oxygen tanks are the real problem
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00:43 One glass of water holds roughly 20 hours of breathing
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01:05 The science of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen with a DC current
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01:38 The wearable system that draws in surrounding water and produces oxygen
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02:10 Leo's path from electrical engineer and diver to founder
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02:48 Where the tech stands today: commercial close, consumer further out
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03:15 Why removing oxygen logistics matters in crisis response and rescue
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03:38 The Netflix versus Blockbuster framing for oxygen infrastructure
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04:05 Why water beats gas tanks for breathing beyond Earth
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05:20 From a Slush side event in Finland to a YC interview within weeks
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06:25 Building in San Francisco versus Finland and compressing months into weeks
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07:15 Leo's advice for founders: build what genuinely interests you

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Check out daivin.tech