BIV Monthly Update LX

Monthly Updates
Written By Tom Ferguson

BIV Monthly Update LX – 10/13/2025

“Tell me again, lad, where are we going?” Bilbo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

 Highlights

  • The Burnt Islanders at Climate Week in NYC were Everyone, Everywhere, All At Once. Great work from the team. So grateful to everyone who came to the various things we were involved in, and to our partners on those things (looking at you Convective, Closed Loop, Streetlife, ClimateHaven, Xylem, Elemental Collective, Echo River, Emerald and many, many more). 

  • Xylem threw a hell of an event for 100+ of their CVC partners in SF at the beginning of the month, and very kindly supported our breakfast at Cooley the following day. Water’s message is getting out there across the board.

  • A first foray to the UAE for the Al Miyah Challenge - excellently run by the Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative, and a privilege to see a range of excellent presentations. 

  • Cala Systems shipping their first units. Just such an impressive process to get here. 

  • The forbearance of Ruki and Kiyan in my absence this month. Also great to know I still got it in the plumbing department, fixing a u-bend clog in London. Mum will let me know if the reassembly holds. Fingers crossed, eh?

October Asks

BIV Portfolio Updates

Seed Fund I

Seed Fund II

Growth Fund I

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: 1910 (+47)

  • Climate Week, WEFTEC, and a flurry of other events have brought a wave of new founders into the funnel. We are particularly excited about innovations in green chemistry, novel applications of AI in utilities, and companies at the intersection of water and decarbonization.

  • That said, we are not shying away from the “boring but fundamental.” Utility fintech and other backbone sectors remain critical, and are frankly anything but boring to us.

Market Insights

  • GWI reports global water, wastewater, and stormwater rates rose 6.2% YOY in 2025, down from 10.7% last year but still roughly twice the global GDP growth rate, based on data from 641 cities. Average combined rates: NAM $5.69/m³, Western Europe $5.63/m³, Global $2.76/m³. Water scarcity and water excess (ie, flooding) are causing investment, and that’s reflected in the price of water - and that in turn motivates users of the more expensive water & wastewater to be more efficient, consider reuse and decentralization, and apply sensors to get data for optimization & AI.

  • Bluefield Research's Q3 2025 report shows the water M&A market is tight, but billion-dollar deals are still making waves. Investor-owned utilities are the real bright spot.

  • From our observations at WEFTEC, there is such clear interest in the sector, not only from private equity but later-stage growth funds. They see the quality of the businesses, the size of the sector and the depth of the exit market. We think there will be 12 billion dollar-plus transactions in 2025, where our prediction was 3 (we’re at 8). 

  • Essential Utilities is investing $26 million to construct a water treatment plant to power a major data center in Western Pennsylvania, reflecting the increasing integration of water and energy infrastructure.

Team

  • Thanks to Roshane Shahbaz for an excellent summer with us. Brava.

  • Welcome to Eliza Harrison, Veronica Agudelo and Jane Zeltner who are interning with us this fall. All off to a running start - it’s fun!

  • Massive thanks to Christine, Steve and Jennie for the conference hustle. 30+ events attended in the past month across the crew. Wild, and massively appreciated.

BIV Insight/Visibility

  • Why You Really Shouldn’t Worry About Water’s Exit Market

  • Water is Now Unignorable

  • What Venture Capitalists Learned in China - Tom and our friends at Convective Capital on Bloomberg

  • Contributed to UpLink (World Economic Forum)’s Insights Paper-  Investing in Water: Aligning Investment Strategies with Water Innovation 

  • The Future of Innovation in Water - Tom on the Water Foresight Podcast

  • Along with Xylem, we hosted a Water VC Breakfast Roundtable in San Francisco to discuss the future of investment in this $1.6trn industry, show what we're building in water, and why.

  • Tom and Christine attended ClimateHaven’s Fireside Chats and Startup Tables during NY Climate Week to drive meaningful conversations and connections among key stakeholders in the water sector.

  • ​We hosted our NY Climate Week event, Fire & Water, with Convective Capital. The event gathered investors, founders, and operators shaping the future of climate resilience. A huge thank you to everyone who joined. Collaboration like this is what accelerates change, and we’re looking forward to seeing many of these conversations turn into action. Our apologies for the overzealous bouncers, and the mystifying poltergeist in the piping.

  • In collaboration with other industry leaders, we co-hosted “WaterTech Futures: Industry Challenges & What It Takes to Scale Solutions” and “Materials Matter: A New Baseline for Water”. The latter was a genuinely great roundtable with Closed Loop, super format, props to Danielle for the impetus.

  • Steve attended The Drop, Europe’s leading climate tech festival, in Malmö, Sweden. He led a well attended presentation on water as an investment megatrend.

  • Jenni spoke at a panel discussion on the blue economy hosted by HAUS in Brooklyn.

  • Team attended WEFTEC, wading their way through 24,000 people, hurtling from meeting to meeting, and barely seeing each other at the world’s largest wastewater conference.

We’re Reading/Listening/Watching

  • Elemental’s D-SAFE one-year report is a masterclass in how financial innovation can actually move climate tech from pilot to scale.

  • From Farnam Street: Micromanagement is just attention to detail, velocity beats mass, and obsession pays off.

  • NYCW unplugged… less climate speeches, more Energy and AI. Utilities and data centers stealing the spotlight.

  • Task on HBO - Bleaky McBleakerson, but some top performances.

  • Arsenal going top of the league. Long may it continue.

Opportunities and a little bit of everything

Things to Work On

  • Get through the next Growth Fund milestone. 

  • Keep the head clear for decisions at the margin - easy to get fuzzy when things going so fast. That’s why our team is so critical.

Thanks so much as ever. 

Tom Ferguson
Previous

Burnt Island Ventures Raises $50 Million to Fund the Development of Critical Water Technologies and Infrastructure
Next

Show Your Working: Understanding our DD Process