BIV Monthly Update XLI

BIV Monthly Update – March 2024

“Is there going to be meetings?” Martin Blank, Grosse Pointe Blank

Highlights

• So kind of McKinsey, Confluence, Stanford Law School, NAWI, the Utility Management Conference, and the Sustainable Water Investment Summit to invite the BIV partnership to speak this month. We’re gonna spread that word…
• Xylem Innovation Labs have put together another excellent Partnership Accelerator group - including 3 Fund I BIV companies. Great fun to talk them through our approach to pitching. Especially when Sivan Zamir ??? (who runs it) called me out for not following my own instructions.
• Welcoming Caroline Zepecki to BIV as our Spring Associate. She’s very good.?
• Delighted to be part of three generations of Fergusons sliding off the mountains of the Arlberg. Light was (mostly) flat, snow was great, Kiyan appears to be a dab hand (foot?).?

March Asks

• Any connections to project finance providers.
• Experts or advisors on the dissemination of IRA & Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding.
• Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule, and if you like it, spread the word. Actually, spread the word regardless.
• Pre-order a Spout system. Or buy an Irrigreen system.?
• Sign up here to attend forthcoming BIV Sessions. Alex Rappaport at ZwitterCo is up next week.
• Point the smartest people you know to the BIV Jobs Board or talent network.

BIV Portfolio Updates?

• Ziptility – 6 BIV LPs joined the most recent round, helping them oversubscribe by 50%. Not closed yet, but it’s great.??
• ZwitterCo – Named as a finalist for the 2024 Edison Award. Launched their Early Access Program for the new organic fouling-immune RO membrane (the data is impressive).?
• 2S Water – Finalists in the Eramet Water Resource Innovation Challenge.
• Aclarity – Hard at work preparing for another Octa deployment. Hires bedding in well.
• Aquafortus – Heads down on the pilot, market still moving their way.
• Beagle Services - Thinking hard about the scale pathway. Will be in NYC soon if you would like to meet them.
• CivilGrid – Josh and Peter presenting at Distributech 2024 in Florida. Sales motion continues to strengthen.
• Daupler – Now serving customers in 34 states throughout the U.S. and New Zealand. On pace to double ARR year-over-year, with an understaffed sales team (soon to change).?
• Floodbase –? Partnership with USAID, Global Parametrics and African Risk Capacity to provide parametric flood insurance to Malawi and Mozambique featured in Bloomberg. Floodbase data coverage featured in the NYT coverage of atmospheric rivers in CA.
• Irrigreen – Picking up even more momentum as we head into the spring season. The grass is getting greener (nailed it).
• LAIIER – Building momentum in the pipeline, and Matt being very thoughtful about the raise. Some noteworthy announcements ahead.
• NLine Energy – Significant new partnership with USDA’s Wood Innovation Grant and Wisconsin's Focus on Energy grant program. Excellent work thinking through the scaling process.
• SewerAI – Presented at the Utility Management Conference in Portland. Running up the numbers.?
• Shower Stream – Installed the first units of their new Smart Shower in an ESA hotel, ramping up to a full building by Q3 ‘24.
• Spout – Over 2,400 pre-orders now (organic inbound growth is impressive). First manufacturing run initiated.
• SwiftComply – CWEA (California Water Environment Association) P3S Conference in Anaheim. Building well.

• 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: 955 (+50)

• Plenty of interesting opportunities for us to consider across stormwater, clean water networks, water quality sensing and more.?
• The team is working exceptionally well on deal flow processing.

Team

• Thrilled to welcome Caroline Zepecki as our Spring Associate. Caroline has a background in climate tech and investing with our good friends over at Propeller (ocean tech VC). She is also pursuing a Master of Environmental Management at Duke, so is Jennie-level smart. Caroline is already proving herself invaluable in helping with screening and diligence across the early pipeline.
• Revamping our company onboarding process, and upgrading the structure of company tracking. Nice to level up our game here, as it makes it much easier for all of the team to bring their strengths to bear to help the Islanders.?

BIV Insight/Visibility

• Three new episodes (ok fine, John’s was released yesterday) from The Fundamental Molecule with Matthew Swindle , Co-Founder and CEO at NLine Energy, Inc. , Tyler Henke , Founder and CEO at Ziptility , and John Bertrand, Co-Founder and CEO at Daupler .
• Excellent conversation with Antoine Walter on the (don't) Waste Water Podcast. Tune in here. We recorded it in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, of all places.
• The BIV team spread our wings this month with me at McKinsey and Stanford, Christine at the Utility Management Conference, Steve at NAWI-SWCC in Palo Alto and the Israeli Water Technology event in Denver, and Marissa at World Water-Tech Innovation in London.?

• If you'd like to hear more about upcoming BIV events, please sign up here.

We’re Reading/Listening/Watching

• Bessemer Venture Partners’ Atlas - excellent insights for founders (and those that support them) on everything from Go-to-Market to sales and hiring.?
• George Monbiot’s recent article in The Guardian. Yet another reminder that the fundamental molecule is becoming increasingly scarce, increasingly fast. I’ve followed Monbiot for 20 years and he’s never made the argument around water this adamantly.
• GWI and XPV’s White Paper on Investing in a Water Secure Future. Their data on US water infrastructure spending is telling. It didn’t skip a beat during the pandemic and is accelerating.
• GWI on the increasing PE interest in water. Some strong names and shaping up to be a strong environment for the companies. The chess board is being set for the coming years.?
• Zero: The Biography of of a Dangerous Idea from Charles Seife, a valuable lesson on not overlooking our most basic assumptions when going back to base principles. The difference between zero and infinity is really much smaller than we think.?
• Arsenal scoring 31 goals in the month, conceding 3. Dare we dream? Dare we?

Things to Work On

• I made an avoidable mistake. There are times when the cards can be held a little closer to the chest. Nevertheless, transparency and directness have served us well thus far, so little reason for wholesale changes. Food for thought, nonetheless.
• Crafting the case for water. In preparing for Stanford, it struck me all over again how strong (and we would argue inevitable) the commercial case for the water sector is. We need to level up how we make that case externally. We’re good, but can be better.?
• Preparing for our AGM - we can’t wait to see all our current and prospective LPs in one place. A shame that place is Zoom, but such is life.
• (What kind of eeeeejit uses XXXX instead of XL when using roman numerals. Marissa caught it. Ouch.)