TWO Scottish inventors who have designed a plant pot that can be posted as a letter are set for their first production run after smashing their modest funding target on their first day on the Kickstarter platform.

Their origami-inspired venture had by last night secured around £4,000 of pledges on Kickstarter, which has a stated aim of helping “bring creative projects to life”.

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POTR Pots co-founders Andrew Flynn and Martin Keane, who met while studying product design engineering at Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow and both now work as designers in Bristol, each own 50% of the business.

Their semi-transparent, polypropylene, flat-pack pots, made entirely of recycled material, are designed to “self-water” plants.

One pull of a cotton cord converts them from their flat form –which the venture’s founders noted reduced the environmental impact of shipping – into a pot capable of holding water at its base.

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The cord is also key to the self-watering mechanism of the POTR pot, which sits around the inner plant pot. Through “wicking”, the cord draws water from the reservoir and delivers it to the soil.

Mr Flynn said: “Inventions are all about solving problems. It’s so rare to receive a letter these days but, when you get one that’s not a bill, it’s a nice surprise.

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“We began to think how we could make that moment even more special. When someone receives an envelope containing a POTR pot, they’ll have a beautiful plant pot within seconds and will be able to look after their plants easily because it’s self-watering.”

He noted the semi-transparent finish enabled people to see easily when the reservoir needed to be re-filled.