Aarke Carbonator 3

Key numbers

The product

The Aarke Carbonator 3 is a premium sparkling-water maker machined from stainless steel with a minimalist Scandinavian look built to stay on the counter for life. A lever and CO2 cylinder carbonate tap water in seconds. It gave design-conscious, sustainability-minded households a refillable alternative to bottled sparkling water, in a machine that looks like kitchen art rather than a plastic eyesore.

How they did it

Carl Ljungh and Jonas Groth, two industrial designers who had spent years designing for other brands, founded Aarke in 2013. They noticed that small kitchen appliances were the one category design-forward homes still lacked. The Carbonator built a cult following across 30+ countries and sales passed SEK 200M by 2020. Nordic private-equity firm Altor took a majority stake that November, keeping both founders as CEO and CPO to drive global expansion into coffee machines, kettles and purifiers.

Why it worked

• Redesigned a category people tolerated rather than loved
• Refillable CO2 cylinders and filters created recurring revenue
• Founder-led design continuity continued after outside investment
• International scale through distributors and its own store