Dorai Home is a home and furniture brand founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2018. It is headquartered in West Valley City, Utah.
Dorai asked Kickstarter for $10,000 to make a bath mat out of diatomaceous earth, a material the company describes as fossilized algae. The project, listed in Salt Lake City, funded in a day, and 799 backers ended up pledging $69,388. Co-founder Kelsey wrote that nearly 1,000 mats had sold in the first two weeks.
Jason Klug and Kelsey started Dorai in 2018 after deciding that traditional home goods trap moisture and harbor bacteria. Diatomaceous earth dries on its own, so they built the first Bath Stone Mat from it, mixed with recycled paper fibers in a material the company calls Diomat. The project title promised the world's driest bath mat.
Kickstarter updates show a small operation moving quickly. A product development group called Klugonyx, which the founders credited in a campaign update, did the design work, and Kelsey and Jason went on Studio 5 on KSL to show the mat to viewers. Backers also learned that Jason was heading to China to work with the factories, so Dorai is listed here for where it started and where it runs, not for where it makes things.
The line has since spread from the bathroom to the kitchen and the pet corner. Dorai sells dish pads, a dish rack, a toilet brush holder that uses a replaceable stone and a cat feeding station that raises the bowls. The Aspen Bath Stone Mat costs $69 for a single, and its straight grooves, the company says, were inspired by Utah's aspen groves. A Medium Bath Stone, which the company says is 40 percent larger than the original, costs $98, and the cat feeding station is $115.
Dorai told affiliate partners that its average sale is $103 and that 33 percent of its customers come back. The company says people try a mat in one part of the house and then return to buy for the others. That turns a bath mat into a sales call for the dish pad.
The company backs its products with a one-year warranty and says its customer care team is in Utah. Replacement stones for the dish pads are sold separately, at $48 for a set of three. Dorai Home, Inc. lists its address in West Valley City.
The Kickstarter title promised the driest bath mat in the world. Eight years later the catalog has grown to include dish pads and a cat feeding station, which is a lot of expansion for a promise about being dry.
Dorai says diatomaceous earth can hold up to 150 percent of its own weight in moisture, which the company says lets its products dry instantly.
