BIV Monthly Update LVI
BIV Monthly Update LVI – 6/12/25
“The trick, Wiliam Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia
Highlights
Mentioned it last month, but another excellent BIV Founder Forum is in the books. Kudos to everyone involved, esp JP and MS - it was a thoughtful program, and the feedback was primo. It’s just so fun to be able to go layers deep on everything from sales ops to product sequencing to capability mapping - you just don’t get anything like it at normal gatherings. Also helps that all the Islanders kept it very real. Thanks for being there.
Completing our investment in Power & Water. Long time coming, there is a superb business here. Nothing like saving people from having to use (a lot of) chemicals, and just plug something in instead. Another company that will do $3m+ this year. Portfolio construction is in a good spot.
Delighted to be a part of the FT Live - Climate & Impact Summit. So wonderful to see the wildly cool Cate Lamb again (the Blue Bond world will be a lot better off with her in it), and me old pal Simon Mundy. If you don’t read Moral Money, you should.
Wonderful to have my parents to stay for a long weekend. The Cloisters are insane, super to see Alvin Ailey again (Revelations is always amazing), Dia Beacon never disappoints, dodged the rain.
June Asks
Tune into a new episode of The Fundamental Molecule with Will Hewes - Managing Water for a Hyperscalar, Craig Beckman - A Generational Shift in Membrane Design, and Jonathan Jackson - Flooding, Fairness and Sticking to Your Knitting.
Pre-order a Spout system. Buy an Irrigreen system. Pre-order a Cala Systems heat pump water heater. Use Beagle to install a home shutoff valve.
Point the smartest people you know to the BIV Jobs Board or talent network.
BIV Portfolio Updates
Fund I
2S Water – Selected as one of the top 100 hardware startups by F6S from a group of over 2 million companies. Ensuring first deployments are flawless.
Aclarity – Steady technical and commercial progress.
Aquafortus – Excellent presentation at the Global Water Summit. Received the Distinction Award and selected as the runner-up for Technology Idol.
Beagle Services – Great customer post about leak and damage prevention. Completed a deployment for Namara Water Technologies, Inc. The Beagles are out!
CivilGrid – Well beyond Series A metrics, and moving towards their Series A. Amazing progress.
Daupler – Excellent show at the Edison Electric Institute. Moving their monster power sector deals through the process.
Floodbase – Powered the launch of Liberty Mutual Preinsurance’s new parametric agricultural product in Colombia. Great show at the National Flood Conference in Dallas. Two giant deals pending.
Irrigreen – V3 of their unit is ready to go (transformational to economics). Very warm interest from two large publicly traded companies in adjacent markets. Key hire in B2B almost in place.
LAIIER – Announced their new partnership with Conserv. Great show at Insurtech. Commercial momentum ramping.
NLine Energy – Going live with their contract manufacturer. Will make a world of difference on multiple fronts. Still annoying Matt about marketing.
SewerAI – Hit 2M inspections and counting - superb milestone, and the number is accelerating. Strong presentation at 2025 NYWEA Spring Meeting.
Shower Stream – Featured by the Water Council. Nice showing at Texas Venture Forum & Gala. Fundraise gathering steam.
Spout – Steady progress, working out the launch bugs.
Ziptility – Rocking and rolling at the NCRWA Annual Conference. Building into the contract operator market.
ZwitterCo – Nice show at the Membrane Technology Forum 2025. Hosted an excellent fireside chat addressing water resiliency in the MENA region. Major deals progressing.
Fund II
AquiSense – Forbes just spotlighted CTO Dr. Jennifer Pagán for her approach to turning patented technology into real-world impact. Jennifer was also honored with this year's American Innovator Award from the Bayh-Dole Coalition.
Aquatic Labs – Allan preparing to join over 60 other climate entrepreneurs for the #RypplesRegatta race for the ocean in Nice.
Cala Systems – Final stages of certification approaching. Will have 9 pilot units in the field in the next 2 weeks. $1.5m of the $2.15m left is in the final stages. Amazing what happens when you just make a round real.
HOPE Hydration – Closing out their operations for the F1 Miami Grand Prix Paddock, where they partnered with Formula 1, FIA – Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, Pirelli, F1 ACADEMY, Porsche Motorsport North America, and the Formula 1 teams. Oh and they saved 7,500 plastic water bottles in the process. Such a cool business. Big announcement pending.
Subeca – On track to exceed plan again in Q2. Great commercial momentum.
TeamSolve – Collaborating with the Empire Partner Foundation on Rand Water’s digital transformation journey.
Flocean – A WSJ story highlights Flocean and the promise of deep sea desal. Off-take secured for the desalinated water produced by Flocean One. Round gathering momentum.
AlgaFilm – Fascinating piece on the Power of Piloting. Great interview with Kelly Thompsn at GWI.
Previsico – Published their 2025 State of Flood Resilience. Selected for the Tech Transit Lab by MTA and PANYNJ to demonstrate real-time flood forecasting solutions in New York.
Power & Water (NEW ISLANDER) – A very busy Water Equipment Show with The Pump Centre. Partnered with the Scarlets Rugby family, as their Official Innovative Water Solutions Partner. About time BIV had a link to a real sport.
Unannounced Water Utility Software Company - Closed another 6 figure ARR deal.
OF I
Aqua Membranes – Introduced their ROI Clarity Calculator to deliver concrete cost savings projections. The team is in great shape, and their technical quality and output is exceptional. Can’t wait for TN to be online.
Daupler – Excellent show at the Edison Electric Institute. Moving their monster power sector deals through the process.
Irrigreen – V3 of their unit is ready to go (transformational to economics). Very warm interest from two large publicly traded companies in adjacent markets. Key hire in B2B almost in place.
Work with the Burnt Islanders
All open roles with the Burnt Islanders are advertised through the BIV Jobs Board which is accessible here
Company Pipeline
Overall Pipeline: 1754 (+79)
We’re seeing exciting developments this month - from agentic AI solutions to synthetic biology for contaminant removal. We’re also meeting founders earlier than ever in their journey. This is right where we want to be.
With spring/summer conference season in full swing, our outbound sourcing is ramping up. From GWS in Paris to Tech Tour in Copenhagen to ACE in Denver, our hunt for the next great water entrepreneurs is truly global.
Market Insights
An excellent report from the BCG team on The Private Equity Opportunity in Climate Adaptation and Resilience. The interest in our sector is mounting.
An older report from BNP Paribas - Water: the trillion-dollar investment gap.
From the FT - Brussels tells EU capitals to cut water use by 10% in face of droughts.
Melting glaciers are the new reality in a new piece from the FT on Glacier gets Himalayan funeral as thousands of bodies of ice ‘die’.
Circularity is inevitable, and picking up steam.
We’ll see what happens, but LG Chem may be selling their membrane business to Glenwood for $700m. Another platform that will be looking for technical edge to grow share.
Not our area really, but delighted to see the UK govt extend the ban on bottom trawling. The rate at which ecosystems recover when left alone is startling.
First Street continues to crank out outstanding insights on the intersection of climate and insurance, where water and flooding play leading roles, with Climate, the Sixth “C” of Credit.
Team
Massive Kudos to Christine for her improbably long stint away from home, allowing her to cover a range of things on the other side of the pond. Similarly to Steve. Partner dedication is real.
Welcoming Megan Siebe as our new Executive Assistant. She’s a powerhouse and off to a fast start coordinating the chaos.
Welcoming Sage Singh as our new Investor Relations intern and Roshane Shahbaz as our new Marketing intern.
BIV Insight/Visibility
Tom at Impact Investor Global Summit and the FT Climate & Impact Summit in London. It’s really important we’re visible at non-water events. Thanks for having me.
Steve and Christine did a superb job at the Global Water Summit. The groundswell of commercial momentum is real (some of the backlog numbers for system integrators are eye-watering), as is the broader financial interest.
Steve repped us excellently at Coolwater Investor Summit. Cohort #3 FTW.
Christine saw the state of the state in Digital at SWAN.
Steve at The Great Salt Rendezvous - the good folks of Utah are awake to water issues.
We’re Reading/Listening/Watching
Nice to see Antoine on the other side of Travis’ mic. Smart cookie.
Alfred Lin on The Knowledge Project and Bill Gurley on ILTB (his goose analogy is real - we saw this logic progression early and have tried to counter-position).
Food for thought from Analisa Goodin, the CEO and founder of Catch+Release. Powerful businesses that absolutely can scale, can be built on doing and gradually automating some awful schlep work in a way that initially absolutely doesn’t scale.
Sharpening our scaling game by reading 5 to 50 to 500 by Eric Kish. Also time to revisit the High Growth Handbook from Elad Gil.
A fascinating take on the 996 culture in VC.
Fun post from Jennifer Pagan, CTO of AquiSense, on why neurotoxins really shouldn’t be in our drinking water.
Very well-done documentary on the history of PFAS and how ubiquitous these chemicasl are.
Things to Work On
The world really does not get the water issue yet. A lot of interesting psychological proclivities at play, from recency bias to simple denial. Excited to begin work on upping our publicity game in the coming weeks.
Thanks so much as ever.
