BIV Monthly Update LXVII

Written By Tom Ferguson

BIV Monthly Update LXVII – May 13th, 2026

“Have a fu*king cup of coffee, Ed” Erin Brockovich, Erin Brockovich

Highlights

  • Fantastic to hold our 5th AGM for 100 LPs, prospective LPs and friends. Thanks to all the presenting Islanders (Anne, Paul, and Shane) and great to have Brendan Tierney with us from Raymond James to discuss the exit market.

  • The fifth edition of the BIV Founder Forum was back in NYC. As always, a privilege to see the Islanders together, and such an extraordinary sequence of conversations. Massive shout out to Matt from LAIIER for the Flounder Forum (iykyk). What a legend he is. 

  • The release of Cala’s Undecided video from Matt Ferrell. He has 1.8m subscribers, and he’s a remarkable communicator. Such great exposure for a remarkable product. 200 units sold and accelerating. 

  • Steve’s pieces on the blog: First, on the Colorado River (you really need to know what’s going on - it supports 14% of the economy and 40 million Americans). Second, on the Great Salt Lake. 

  • Great fun Mother’s Day up in the Catskills featuring some profoundly resilient swimming from Kiyan, and a gorgeous Greenpoint b’day for Ruki. Pizza really is good, isn’t it?

May Asks

BIV Portfolio Updates

Seed Fund I

  • 2S Water – Building well. Selected for the Fierce Sensors Rising Stars.

  • Aclarity – Continued PFAS destruction deployments with verified data across multiple commercial sites. Crossing the rubicon.

  • Aquafortus – Front page of Upstream Online “Tech project could harness Permian’s produced water for data centre cooling.” Securing contracts to clean oilfield produced water for use in manufacturing and data centres, with the first 20,000 bbl/d units targeted for deployment by year-end. Series B conversations advancing well.

  • Beagle Services – 2026 building well, demand from insurers ramping. Taking on a small capital addition for a smart move into an adjacent vertical. $1m first close complete, contact us if interested. 

  • CivilGrid – Remarkable traction. My old pal Nidhi Menon settling in nicely as Chief of Staff. Could be a monster. CivilGrid, I mean. Not Nidhi. 

  • Daupler – Multiple rip-and-replace wins over a key competitor is a big deal. Great plan in place. If they carry the spirit of Dave Brailsford, it’ll be all to play for. 

  • Floodbase – Quote API distribution continues to build with brokers and carriers. Team is methodically expanding the carrier roster. Platform building.

  • Irrigreen – Smoked Q1, AND selected as a Good Housekeeping 2026 Home Reno Award Winner, stacking on top of the Wired and Forbes coverage for their drip unit.

  • LAIIER – On-budget for Q1, and ever closer to a revolution in flat roofing. As noted above, Matt rules. 

  • NLine Energy – Just picking dollars up off the boiler room floor. High conviction on 2026 sales numbers (which are big), and likely to exceed.

  • SewerAI – VP of Operations Abhinoor Dhull (who, like Matt, rules) on the Informed Infrastructure podcast. I sometimes get teary-eyed about Matt R & Billy and what they’ve built.

  • Shower Stream – 225 units and counting. Hotel savings as high as 40% (FORTY PER CENT!!). Bringing on more capital.

  • Spout – Beyond breakeven for 5+ months running and demand accelerating. Hats off to Reuben. Buy one!

  • Ziptility – Profitable and scaling steadily. The contract-operator GtM motion continues to deliver. Good plan in place. 

  • ZwitterCo – Partnership with ESMIL Process Systems for high-recovery treatment of organics-laden food and beverage wastewater across Europe. Check their deep dive on why membranes are changing food and beverage wastewater treatment. 

Seed Fund II

  • AlgaFilm – Kingsville commercial demo continues to deliver impressive operational results. Water so clean a turtle literally moved in. To a wastewater treatment plant.

  • Aquatic Labs – More capital in place. 2026 production fully allocated (like, actually). 2027 starting to be allocated.

  • AquiSense – Big retail unlock: announced a Lowe’s partnership to sell PearlAqua consumer disinfection products online in the US. Seriously good component deal secured. More capital in place. 

  • Cala Systems – Undeterred feature is a HUGE deal. Featured by CBS Boston. 200 units sold. Seed-II oversubscription oversubscribed (nice). Series A data room almost ready.

  • CNSRV – SO much pipeline action. These will be as standard in commercial kitchens as ovens.

  • CREW Carbon – HRSD multi-facility partnership continues to ramp. Q1 on budget. Imminent announcement of Series A. 

  • Current Software – Now live with 60+ customers and building fast. Listen to Barrett’s TFM Ep. 51 if you haven’t yet.

  • Epoch – Pushing into a major content collaboration with Infor, Altana, and Sphera. Seed round almost complete, great syndicate. 

  • Flocean – Mongstad first water on track for Q2 2026 – getting closer. DNV-validated emissions reductions strengthen the institutional case.

  • HOPE Hydration – HydroStation network growth continuing, permanent units in San Jose. Miami roll-out continuing. Amazing work on a new product. 

  • Subeca – Series A-2 first close complete, team pushing toward $5M+ this year. 5 consecutive quarters of beating budget - and no sandbagging.

  • TeamSolve – Global Water Awards 2026 nomination for Balibago Waterworks in the Philippines turning heads. NYC engagement in process.

  • Previsico – Marsh and Liberty partnerships continuing to deliver. Approaching GBP 5m ARR. 

  • Power & Water – New capital on the balance sheet. Solid progress towards key partnerships.

  • Waterly – The Texas private utility deal unlocks 100+ additional plants in the pipeline. SampleServe digital sample management partnership integrating well.

Growth Fund I

  • Aqua Membranes – Knoxville facility build-out continues on track; the technical leap teased last quarter is imminent. New capital also imminent.

  • Daupler – Rip-and-replace wins over a competitor is a big deal. Great plan in place. If they carry the spirit of Dave Brailsford, it’ll be all to play for. 

  • Irrigreen – Smoked Q1, AND selected as a Good Housekeeping 2026 Home Reno Award Winner, stacking on top of the Wired and Forbes coverage for their drip unit.

Company Pipeline
Overall Pipeline: 2,286 (+36)

  • Steady pace with focus on progressing existing opportunities, some really interesting stuff in play, esp. in monitoring & sensing (a glut here). #16 for Fund II confirmed.

  • Fun to see the movements in water-focused industrial AI – full-asset-lifecycle tools from pre-construction design optimization through real-time operations and predictive maintenance.

  • Slight tick-up in data-centre-focused technology, but it remains a tough nut for us to find conviction on. More on that in a future post. 

Market Insights

Team

  • This has been an intense month. Kudos in particular for Jessica’s oversight of all the moving parts, and Marissa nailing a sequence of events - materials, flows, making sure we were all in the right place. Exceptional work. 

  • Fun to introduce our AI work to our LPs at the AGM. Not all perfect, but my my are we iterating fast. 

BIV Insight/Visibility

We’re Reading/Listening/Watching‍ ‍

  • A Water Doom Loop is Coming

  • We really hope Corpus Christi can avoid the worst

  • Catherine Flowers on Amanpour, talking about the removal of sanitation funding in the Southwest, which is painful and cruel. 

  • We Have Learned Nothing - Jerry Neumann is excellent.

  • The Wasteland by TS Eliot. I once saw Fiona Shaw perform this at an old music hall in East London. Extraordinary. 

  • Brian Chesky and Paul Tudor Jones on ILTB. PTJ is so interestingly the opposite of Buffett. Super guy. Great that Brian has happened on the same style of work that Ruki is pioneering at the IRC. Good for him for noticing. I thought Dylan Patel’s episode was…..misjudged. The apparent correlation between AI-maxxxxing (who knows how many x’s we use now) and being insufferable is noteworthy. And a HUGE problem for the technology.

  • Widow’s Bay on Apple TV is a delight. 

Opportunities

Things to Work On

  • Growth Fund I momentum continues to build, but the next 2 weeks are crucial ahead of the Summer slowdown.

  • I need to write more. And we need a water hangout in NYC. Stay tuned for that. 

Thanks so much as ever.

Tom Ferguson
Previous

Why We Invested in CREW
Next

The Colorado River: Designing Basin “2.0”