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Company Profile: Aria Vent + Interview

Aria Vent is leading the charge in innovation in interior home renovation. Aria Vent Inc are known for their unique covers for air vents. What makes Aria different is that their vents look seamless when installed. Heating vent designs have mostly stayed the same ever since the incorporation of air vents and air registers. While some have tried to flush vents against a surface none of them have ever been able to remove the grill look. Aria has changed the ventilation game.

Aria Vent is an industry disruptor. They took their products directly to the customers through social media such as Instagram. Contractors quickly took notice because of the unique look that homeowners and interior designers desired. The demand grew to the point where building material outlets needed to stock them.

Who is Aria Vent Inc?

Aria Vent Inc is a Canadian company founded in the Greater Toronto Area. Aria was founded in September 2016 by a father daughter duo, Paolo and Roberta Mantenuto. They noticed that one of the mechanical systems in interior home design remained the same, air ventilation.

Both Paolo and Roberta noticed that air ventilation remained stagnant while everything else was becoming more modulor and minimalist. Aria Vent took over 100 different designs until the aluminum foil prototypes succeeded. They now have 13 employees and are founded in 

Roberta graduated from both Humber College and Western University before beginning Aria with her father. While growing Aria Vent, Roberta also spends her time volunteering for Habitat for Humanity building homes for those in need.

Interview with Roberta Mantenuto from Aria Vent Inc

We reached out to Aria Vent Inc for an interview. Luckily we were able to talk to Roberta Mantenuto regarding the growth of Aria Vent, the difficulties faced, and plans for the future.

Aria Vent was founded in 2016 and has grown fast in the last 5 years. What were Paolo and Roberta doing before the success of Aria?

Roberta: Paolo was the president of Marble and Marble, and also founder and inventor of a few other companies. He used to invent many products for safety in the Marble industry. None of them really took off, but this was a big passion for him as he lost a few friends from workplace incidents – where they were mishandling marble slabs because of lack of safety products / knowledge. He also served on the board of the MIA (marble institute of america) for the safety committee – trying to implement industry safety standards. 

I was working in PR just before Aria Vent at an entertainment PR firm. I stayed in PR for a short while and then decided to travel. I was backpacking through Central America for four months when Paolo sent me the idea for Aria Vent. Shortly after I came back to Canada we started Aria Vent. At the beginning of Aria, I was also doing night school to become an interior designer – I had to abandon that once Aria began taking off!

How did the idea of modular vent covers come to be?

Roberta: Paolo was solving a problem for a customer at Marble and Marble – the customer had many vents and Paolo was trying to come up with a more modern solution. The customer turned down Paolo’s designs. His customer thought the vent was too modern and “looked like shit” – exact words. So he kept going, tried to make it into a humidifier – that failed. And then made over 100 prototypes, and finalized the design into what we know today as the “Aria OG”

How did Aria grow so fast?

Roberta: Contractors are the driving force behind Aria Vent. We came up at a time where contractors were starting to use Instagram as a marketing tool, and Aria Vent was great content, and actually solved a problem. Being a visual product – the convergence of instagram and the strong bad-ass construction community behind us – it was the perfect storm. Also – we started as a D2C ecommerce business. We were able to build consumer demand online, and would use that to persuade retailers to take a chance on us and put us on their shelves.

What were some of the difficulties Aria had to face with the growth and how did Aria triumph over these difficulties?

Roberta: Finding the right retail partners to work with – for most of our retailers, we are not their regular vendor. We do things differently – we make different products, we process orders differently, we do business differently etc. Finding retail partners who align with our values and understand what we are doing is always a challenge. And that’s not the easiest thing to find, especially in industries who are resistant to innovation and change. We are a forward thinking, innovative product, and our products are best sold by forward thinking innovative people. We (us and our retailers) need to be adding mutual value to each other. So we put extra focus on vetting our partners to ensure we align. This is how we ensure our partnership is successful!

Are there any plans for global expansion?

Roberta: World domination baby! We want to change the way people see building accessories (not JUST vents) EVERYWHERE. 

As the new year is coming up, what is next for Aria in the year 2022?

Roberta: Vents are just the beginning, we are going to repeat what we did with vents with every other unsightly building components. We turn necessary construction components into design features with the “Aria aesthetic”.

Where Can I Buy Aria Vent Products?

Master Building Materials stocks a wide range of Aria Vent products. The products of theirs we include are the Aria OG, Flushmount Pro, Drywall Lite Bead, and Drywall Pro Exhaust Fan. Give us a call or write to us regarding what you need and we will gladly accommodate your needs. You can also visit Aria Vent on their official website to learn more.

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