BIV Monthly Update LXXII

BIV Monthly Update LXXII - 10/13/26

“If the camels die, we die.” Sherif Ali, Lawrence of Arabia

Highlights

• Welcome Biota and Verdi to the Burnt Island! Biota’s rapid PFAS testing and their MagnaPrep technology are solving profound bottlenecks in the field and traditional lab market. Rose is awesome. For Verdi, we have spent five years waiting for the right company to go after agricultural water efficiency (Irrigreen will get there, but not going straight at it), given that agriculture represents 70% of freshwater use. Arthur & Roman focus on the labor savings from the automation on farm valves and pumps, saving a huge amount of water into the bargain. They will 3x revenue (and not from a small base) this year. 

• AlgaFilm closed an oversubscribed seed round, co-led by BIV and Azolla Ventures with E8 Angels. Ahren and Pierre are in a great position to scale their remarkable first commercial proof points.  

• Subeca closed their $3m funding round, with participation from Suez and Cycle H2O Water Fund. They’re in a great position to post a remarkable year in 2026. All metering companies are paying attention. They’re picks and shovels for a lot of different things. 

• New York Climate Week and WEFTEC back to back. The team was at more than a dozen events in NYC, hosting a briefing session on Desalination (with Aqua Membranes and Flocean) as well as a roundtable on Water & Industry with Closed Loop and McKinsey. The water conversation at Climate Week was louder than last year – the UN's Kaveh Madani told the room at Climate Group’s event that the world has entered "water bankruptcy". We’re confident next year will be even louder. This is only going one way. 

• Very interesting varied initiatives that show the ongoing improving health of our market, from the finalisation of the Cleanwater1 deal for $465m (congrats to David Stanton of our Seed Fund IC), to Ray Dalio’s support for Imagine H2O’s work in the UAE, to Xylem’s 5.5x oversubscribed blue bond. All adds up…

October Asks

• Join us on October 15 at noon ET with Peter Gleick to discuss the themes and findings of his new book “When the Well Is Dry - How Water Fuels Violence and Shapes Peace”. It’s a remarkable history of the intersection of water and conflict. 

• Tune into new episodes of The Fundamental Molecule: Ep. 58: Corey Williams – 7 Exits and Counting, Ep. 59: Nick Dyner (Moleaer) – Building a Big Business Around a Tiny Bubble, and Ep. 60: Reuben Vollmer (Spout) - Building a Water Company Out of Thin Air.

• Buy an Irrigreen system. Buy a Cala Systems heat pump water heater. Buy an AquiSense water disinfection system, also available at Lowes. Use Beagle to install a home shutoff valve. Reserve a Spout.

• Point the smartest people you know to our BIV jobs.

BIV Portfolio Updates

Seed Fund I

• 2S Water – Anthea presented AquaValid to the NGA, one of a handful of companies put forward to source technology for the semiconductor industry, then went straight into UltraFacility in Phoenix. 

• Aclarity – Continuing to post exceptional PFAS destruction data from their first commercial deployment. #2 and #3 in sight. 

• Aquafortus – Jim testified before the Texas House Energy Resources Committee on why industrial reuse of treated produced water needs its own fast permitting lane.

• Beagle Services – Strong progress towards the next iteration of their business model. Pipeline in the core business continues to grow. 

• CivilGrid – Big hit with the PG&E case study: up to four months faster project scoping, planning and design, and a 40% reduction in field research and survey activities.

• Daupler – Won "Best Smart Water Product or Solution" at the 2026 Smart Water Summit. Remarkable jump in large $ pipeline. 

• Floodbase – Such a pleasure to be on stage with Bessie at RBC’s NYCW event. They’ve built something exceptional.

• Irrigreen – New hardware release with multiple additional features. Let us know if you have any connections into PE-backed landscaping contractors. 

• LAIIER – Installed the first ever smart roof – leak detection inside and across the roof from day one. Partner delighted. Matt is in his groove.

• NLine Energy – Selected for DOE’s Industrial Technology Validation program, with a planned turbine installation at Pratt & Whitney’s East Hartford facility. 

• Spout – Completing another manufacturing run. Current reservations are scheduled to ship in October 2026. Maintaining pace. Considering taking on capital, but don’t need it. 

• Ziptility – We love the new content for operators-in-training. Very smart positioning indeed. Partnerships beginning to bear fruit, and interesting signs from mid-size utilities. 

• ZwitterCo – Seven full Evolution installations in dairy plants and 15+ active production demos, per Jon Goodman's IMPA recap. Going through the gears.

Seed Fund II

• AlgaFilm – Seed closed. Co-led by BIV and Azolla Ventures, with E8 Angels, and oversubscribed. Our congratulations post here. Exciting times ahead. 

• Aquatic Labs – Working through some very interesting options. Wide applicability of this technology.

• AquiSense – Hit NSF/ANSI 55 Class A certification, and had a great WEFTEC. The flagship high-capacity UK deployment is a major marker for the industry. 

• Biota – Recap of why we invested – Rose Nash and the team in Longmont are building RapidTest (answers in minutes) and MagnaPrep (sample prep for messy real-world matrices). We led the $3M seed. They’re very good.

• Cala Systems – Jason in North Carolina went from $708 a year on water heating to a projected $66 – Duke Energy can no longer even isolate the water heater on his bill. Some great recent news, including certification in the PNW (50% of the HPWH market).

• CNSRV – Already at Nobu Malibu, Ritz-Carlton Maui, Dodger Stadium and Children's Hospital LA – and the DC:02 is NSF/ANSI 169-listed. Cuts kitchen water use by 98%. 

• CREW Carbon – Whirlpool chose CREW as one of four suppliers in its ClimeFi-structured removal portfolio – firm offtake plus options on more volume.

• Current Software – Doug McNair has worked for the Borough of Macungie for 31 years and had never seen utility bills ready two days after quarter close, until this year. Our (mystifyingly belated) Why We Invested in Current post. Don’t snooze on this lot. 

• Epoch – Resilinc launched its EUDR compliance product with Epoch. EUDR applies to large and medium operators from December 30. Good timing.

• Flocean – DNV modelled the brine plume from Flocean One - they’ve essentially solved the brine salinity problem. Another big milestone. 

• HOPE Hydration – Big sales quarter, with another to come. Watch out for some very interesting SKU news. 

• Subeca – The continuous usage alarm is a huge deal. One customer flagged more than 10% of accounts for continuous flow, 1M gallons of annualised consumption. 

• TeamSolve – 120Water launched 120Field, built on TeamSolve's Knowledge Twin. Field data from crews flows straight into compliance records, offline-capable, with chain of custody. Looking forward to the fruits of this partnership. 

• Previsico – South Africa deployments progressing well, and former Springbok lock Flip van der Merwe joined as a growth consultant, which is completely awesome. My inner rugby fan is rather excited. Not looking forward to shaking his hand, mind. 

• Power & Water – Solid progress on near-term opportunities. Pipeline is wildly healthy.

• Verdi – Welcome to the Burnt Island, Arthur, Roman and team. Here’s Why We Invested. Spoiler - it’s because they’re super smart and their business rules. 

• Waterly – Key upsell almost there, and excellent progress on their product strategy. Will end the year in a v interesting position. 

Growth Fund I

• Aqua Membranes – One F&B major increased RO system output by 27.5%, while decreasing energy usage by 31.8% at the same time. There is no way this doesn’t become the new element standard. 

• Daupler – Won "Best Smart Water Product or Solution" at the 2026 Smart Water Summit. Remarkable jump in large $ pipeline as big utilities recognise the huge value they provide. It really is the standard in emergency response now. 

• Irrigreen – New hardware release with multiple additional features. Let us know if you have any connections into PE-backed landscaping contractors.

Company Pipeline

Overall Pipeline: 2,647 companies (+116 during September).

• Busy month for later stage appraisal. Parallel processing the final two positions for Fund II with two additional investments for GF I (to take us to 5/10 complete). Range from water monitoring for low-income housing to financial infrastructure. Fun indeed, and props to the team for the plate spinning.

• Interesting uptick in biochar and carbon removal, as well as cloud seeding (a market building here behind Rainmaker - we’ll see what happens). Also interesting to track a couple of well-financed (but possibly predictable) stumbles. 

Market Insights

• Water venture funding across $1bn for 2026 with a quarter still to go. Nice going, squad. 

• The Bureau of Reclamation issued 2027–28 operating guidelines in August. Arizona, California and Nevada are still negotiating their sharing agreement ahead of January 1, 2027. Amazon committed $20M to a Colorado River Basin Collaborative with Xylem, Coca-Cola, Ecolab, Grundfos and Xylem.

• Select Water Solutions agreed to acquire Pilot Water Solutions for $700M. Expected to close in Q4, subject to approvals.

• Rainmaker raised a $100M Series B for its cloud-seeding work. Great cap table, exceptional founder. Cheering for them and this segment - new supply so helpful. 

• The D.C. Circuit heard arguments in the PFAS drinking-water-rule challenge on September 18. Judges skeptical of the challenge, no ruling yet.

• Gov. Abbott directed Texas to penalize data centers that fail to report water use. Nearly 30% of 329 facilities surveyed in 2025 responded, from 28% across 67 (!!) facilities surveyed in 2024. 

• California proclaimed a state of emergency to prepare for a potentially historic El Niño. The Sites Reservoir project also received revised draft water-right permit terms. Final permit has not been issued. The proposed reservoir's 1.5 million acre-feet is storage capacity, not annual capture.

• Maharashtra turning to tankers as water sources run dry. The Indian Express reports 74 of 76 talukas declared drought-affected, with 277 tankers serving 160 villages before the monsoon ended.

BIV Insight/Visibility

• Water: A Constraint on Industrial Growth? Great piece from SK alongside Megan Gerryts of the World Economic Forum. 

• Liquid Assets: Tom Ferguson. Nice of my pal Ravi Kurani to have me on the pod. He’s a good interviewer, and we cover some ground. 

• Two Sides of Water: NYCW and WEFTEC 2026. My reflection on a hectic two weeks that said a lot about where we are.  

We're Reading/Listening/Watching

• “The Third Door” by Alex Banayan — thanks to Jorge at HOPE for the recommendation.

• “When the Well is Dry” by Peter Gleick. See you Thursday October 15. 

• “The Man in the Mirror” AND “The Art of Fighting” both hit the NYT Bestseller list. So many congratulations A & P!

• Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things”. RIP, sir. Go gentle, and thank you.

• “Youth” from Sharon Horgan predictably good. 

• The Mike Moritz episode of ILTB is fascinating, and worth putting it next to Doug Leone’s on David Senra. Nuts they were such successful partners for so long. 

• 114 charges. Disgraceful, as has been the reaction. 

Things to Work On

• Final stretch of Growth Fund I fundraising to the final close on Dec 15th. It’s in a good position. Stay tuned for various sessions we’ll be holding.  

• Good company raise progress, but a few still in progress. Push to their respective finish lines. 
  

Thanks so much as ever.