BIV Monthly Update LXIX

Written By Tom Ferguson

BIV Monthly Update LXIX – 7/15/2026‍ ‍

“Good for you [Good for you!] and Good for me [Good for me!]” Gunnery Sergeant Hartman [His Platoon] Full Metal Jacket‍ ‍

Highlights‍ ‍

  • SewerAI secured a major strategic investment from JMI Equity. SewerAI was one of our earliest Fund I commitments in June 2021, and the deal enabled our first distribution to our Fund I investors. Big (but necessary) step for us. Our resounding applause to Matt, Billy and all the team. So much more to come. Once an Islander, always an Islander.

  • Flocean has produced first water at Mongstad. The world's first commercial-scale subsea desalination system is producing freshwater at 500 metres depth off Norway's west coast. Up to 1 million litres per day, 40–50% less energy than conventional coastal plants. It’s the water equivalent of inventing the first wind turbine - but less visible. This is MASSIVE news for the world. 

  • HOPE Hydration announced a countywide pilot with Miami-Dade County launched with 15 HydroStations across transit hubs and public spaces. 5.2 million plastic bottles saved and counting. They really should be standard infrastructure for cities.

  • Two BIV portfolio companies – Flocean and Aqua Membranes – advanced as semifinalists in the $119M XPRIZE Water Scarcity competition. 

  • Great to be with CB and SK in Singapore for the International Water Week. SUCH a delight to meet a number of our LPs in person for the first time. Huge thanks to everyone who joined us for lunch and breakfast sessions. 

  • The slightly relentless Spring period calming down a bit. It’s nice to be behind the desk for a stretch. Whirlwind. Coincides with some escalating momentum in the GF I raise. We’re now c.$6m from having what we need.

July Asks

BIV Portfolio Updates

Seed Fund I

  • 2S Water – Strategic channel partnership with The EPCM Group in Chile. Anthea Sargeaunt presented at CIM Connect 2026 in Vancouver on real-time mine water analytics. Mining and lithium companies are paying attention. 5 near term sales in process.

  • Aclarity – First full commercial deployment confirmed and underway. The EPA advanced a comprehensive PFAS strategy with nearly $1 billion in new drinking water funding – a lot of wind at their backs.

  • Aquafortus – Selected as a 2026 Global Cleantech 100 company. Hoshang Subawalla (CEO), Iris Jancik (CRO), Dave Allworth (CFO) now in place. Validated across 16 brine streams, now pushing to infrastructure-scale. Series B conversations underway.

  • Beagle Services – Service coverage widening. The 100% contribution margin (yes) continues to hum. A BIG August with a very interesting product launch indeed. 

  • CivilGrid – Was at NACE2026 in Arlington. One PG&E designer told them CivilGrid helped him stop waiting on survey data to begin work – "now he can design on Day 1." That's the whole ball game. This is going to be a big company.

  • Daupler – GovTech 100 for the fourth year. 200+ utilities, 22 launched in Q2. Big H2 ahead of them, value prop continues to be cast-iron. First Power IOU expanding after 3 months on the platform.

  • Floodbase – Europe's largest portfolio parametric flood policy triggered in Italy, covering 25,000+ churches with immediate payouts during major rainfall. Liberty Mutual's instant parametric flood quoting is live. Platform building. 

  • Irrigreen – Sprinkler 3 + Smart Controller 3 – manufactured in Wisconsin. 400 million gallons saved by customers this year. AI-driven quoting tool live on the website. Big step forward for their fertigation partnership. Stay tuned. 

  • LAIIER – Matt is really making the sales engine hum. On budget, and their core roofing partnership is progressing very nicely indeed. . 

  • NLine Energy – Strong end to Q2. Have potentially transformative set of deployments with a F&B major at the one yard line. H2 going to be big. Assessing options. 

  • SewerAI – JMI Equity strategic investment. Matt, Billy, and the whole team – congratulations. 

  • Spout – 9 months beyond breakeven. Reuben doing excellently. Open to a small cash addition to expand the working capital base. 

  • Ziptility –Remain profitable. Great progress on their overall strategy. It’s REALLY nice to have their voice back on LinkedIn. Such a great account. 

  • ZwitterCo – Momentum continues to build. Having a great year, and much more to come.

Seed Fund II‍ ‍

  • AlgaFilm – Joined the E8 Angels portfolio. 2–4x lower capex, 50–75% lower opex for nutrient removal. Kingsville demo humming. First fully commercial project in sight.

  • Aquatic Labs – Moving through the raise process. Allan has work to do - but being sold out for 2026 helps. Have to get manufacturing initiated.  

  • AquiSense – Pulled off a remarkable inventory purchase. Will be helpful to margins! Added a KY-based fund to the cap table. Moving well, big announcements to come. 

  • Cala Systems –Astonishing work from the product team to get to c.100% reliability and zero replacements for months now. Kudos to Mike. Series A coming together. Demand is spiking, and extending the Seed II to add some liquidity for inventory and GtM activations ahead of the A. Let us know if it’s of interest.  

  • CNSRV – Metropolitan Water District added the DC:02 to its $800 verified commercial rebate list. Received a Kitchen Innovations Award. $2m+ annualised in June. Love it.

  • CREW Carbon – Building well. Jo is paying exactly as much attention to hiring as he needs to. Quite the team is being assembled. HRSD are telling anyone who will listen that CREW saved them $400m. Which is nice.

  • Current Software – Platform added multi-site annual reports, metric rollups, and analytics. Barrett is building the company very thoughtfully indeed.  

  • Epoch – Building some remarkable (and defensible) differentiation. Seed complete, with a great cap table. 

  • Flocean – First water at Mongstad (June 22). Just a massive deal. Commercial-scale subsea desalination at 500 metres, up to 1 million litres daily, 40–50% less energy.It’s just so impressive. 

  • HOPE Hydration – HydroStations at FIFA World Cup 2026 venues across the US. Miami-Dade County went countywide – 15 HydroStations at transit hubs and public spaces, no cost to taxpayers, funded by brand sponsorships. 5.2 million plastic bottles saved. Ribbon-cutting at Government Center Metrorail Station June 29. 

  • Subeca – Marin Municipal Water District pilot: 104 devices, 90%+ read rates within a three-day billing cycle. 5+ quarters beating budget. Another big deal with a hyperscaler. Close to completing the bridge.  

  • TeamSolve – Excellent feedback from customers and pilot users at SIWW. Great to hear. Robin on the main stage.  

  • Previsico – Marsh partnership on flood risk management. Continuing to build, and good progress on a key hire. 

  • Power & Water – Heads down on a number of potentially key accounts. Pilots continue to knock it out the park, and once conversions hit… 

  • Waterly –1,000+ systems, 5,000+ users, 28+ states. Named Preferred Vendor by California Rural Water Association. SOC 2 Type 1 done. Good progress.

Growth Fund I

Company Pipeline

  • Overall Pipeline: 2,363 (+105).

  • Our team has been busy on the conference circuit, meeting founders from Madrid to Milwaukee and adding to the pipeline. Recent opportunities have clustered around advanced treatment, the water-energy nexus, and alternative water supply.

  • We have also spent a lot of time evaluating AI-enabled software for utility operations, from compliance to workflow automation. Whatever the sector, the bar doesn't change - we continue to prioritize businesses with clear defensibility, strong customer pull, and a credible path to near-term commercialization.

  • The acceleration in the Growth Fund I fundraise means we’re hard at work on the forced curve for the next investments there. It’s a hell of a field, from buildings monitoring and control to ultrafine primary wastewater screening. We just have to make sure we know exactly what the investment opportunities are over the next 18 months. GF I is shaping up very nicely indeed. 

Market Insights

  • Singapore put nearly S$100M into water tech R&D at SIWW 2026. S$85M to PUB for desalination and emerging contaminants, S$12M for industrial water across wafer fabs and data centres. 

  • AWWA's 2026 State of the Water Industry Report has the five-year outlook at its lowest in nearly a decade. Aging infrastructure, PFAS, microplastics, widening revenue gaps still driving activity, but unsurprisingly a more concerned tone.

  • EPA pushed a comprehensive PFAS strategy – nearly $1 billion in new drinking water funding, innovative destruction technologies highlighted. $5B available through Emerging Contaminants grants over five years. Good to see. 

  • Bureau of Reclamation spending $52M on Hoover Dam turbine replacements. Lake Mead at 1,044 ft. and falling. New wide-head turbines designed to function down to 950 ft. Panicky stuff. The southwest water story is not going away.

  • France recorded 1,000+ excess deaths in the European heat wave. Germany, Hungary, Czechia, Poland, and Denmark all set all-time temperature records. Water stress and extreme heat are no longer the exception. 

Team ‍

  • What a stretch. SewerAI DPI, CREW Series A close, Flocean first water, multiple fundraises in flight. I work with a great set of people, who deserve a break this summer.

  • Looks like we are <8% to go on GF I (though some things will take a moment to close). Have to maintain the pressure. It’s such a great opportunity, just need to translate it. 

BIV Insight/Visibility

  • SIGN UP - Steve Kloos hosting Colorado River Basin 2.0 webinar (July 28) – Anne Castle, Nicole Neeman Brady, Terry Fulp, Upmanu Lall. 40 million people, $1.5 trillion in annual economic activity, operating rules expiring at year-end.

  • Show Your Working Part 6: Jennie Graham – Operational Diligence (June 5). The signals we read at the operational stage. Narrative consistency, command of the numbers, information hygiene, how founders respond under pressure. Namechecked Jinal Surti (Epoch), Anne Mushow (Subeca), Michael Rigney (Cala), Barrett Hansen (Current). Jennie did another great job here. 

  • Christine Boyle: AI in Water Part 2 (June 12). Why the architecture was wrong. Dumping everything into centralized repositories and hoping the right person queries it doesn't change how plants run. Mystifying, we know. 

  • Letter to LPs on SewerAI (June 10) – our journey with Matt, Billy, and the team from first check in June 2021 to JMI Equity’s Growth Round. Once an Islander…

  • Steve and Megan Gerryts co-hosting Ripple at The Drop, Malmö (September 16) – water, AI, and what happens when the industries everyone is betting on run into a resource constraint nobody planned for.

  • The Fundamental Molecule Ep. 54: Alaina Harkness – Falling in Love with the Problem (May 13). 

We're Reading/Listening/Watching

  • John Kim on Invest Like the Best. Fundraising is a profoundly overlooked (and rather difficult) art, and subject in general. His book is good, I just kinda wish it wasn’t ghostwritten. I can only imagine what his frequent flier mile balance is. 

  • Cape Fear lives up to the name. Bardem is positively laying waste to the scenery. Makes De Niro and Mitchum look like kindly midwestern kindergarten teachers.

  • Matt Damon on Good Hang with Amy Poehler. Great vibes, and a cracking Small Parts, Small Actors joke from Nolan re Interstellar (just listen). 

  • England’s nerve-shredding win over Morocco. I think we won over the bar we were in eventually. Sort of. 

  • The FT’s The Story of Money is really good. Tett and Wigglesworth are pointy-headed excellence. They like them some financial crises, that’s for sure.

  • You should absolutely check out For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music. As insane a project as it sounds. 

  • The Sheep Detectives rules. 

  • So does Chef (we watched and REWATCHED with our 8 yr old niece who agrees that it’s dope, despite the sweariness). Will make you ache for a) food, and b) New Orleans.

Things to Work On

  • Growth Fund I fundraising. All LP introductions welcome.

  • A number of pieces to be written on a variety of issues. Heads down.  ‍

Thanks so much as ever.

Tom Ferguson
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BIV Monthly Update LXVIII