BIV Monthly Update XVIII

BIV Monthly Update – 7th February 2023

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

?Highlights

• Excellent trip to California, with 22 meetings and 3 speaking engagements in 3 days. Nice to be back. Very kind of Buzz Thompson at Stanford, SwiftComply and the Cleantech Group Forum to have us.
• A pleasure to visit Xylem HQ in DC (what a great, modest space) to speak to a phenomenal group of leaders about the logic of our work.
• Marissa Sterling ’s?piece makes a crucial argument as to why climate change is water change. It’s one we’ve been meaning to make for a while, and she’s done a super job.
• Back into the groove with the team welcoming back Jennie Graham part time, and welcoming onboard? Kane Labrador ?in Operations, and? Raj Aurora, MD ?as our Sprinter Associate. We have a doctor in the house…which given how I felt yesterday is a good thing.
• Deciding my January 3rd birthday is actually awesome (thanks Ruki).

February Asks

• Any and all commercial connections for the companies always welcome.
• Sign up here?for forthcoming Founder Sessions
• Point the smartest people you know to the?BIV Jobs Board

BIV Portfolio Updates

• Aclarity?– Building momentum in the raise, while maintaining pace in execution. Impressive stuff. Partnerships with Xylem and De Nora stand them in good stead.?
• Aquafortus?– Selected as a Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge Finalist. Leased an ideal facility in Houston to enable construction of the 600 bbl/day pilot.
• Beagle Services?- Good progress, with working capital financing secured.
• CivilGrid?– Seed fundraise progressing nicely, closed largest standalone entry contract to date ($22k ARR).
• Daupler?– Significant deals moving through the pipeline, first close of interim round complete.
• Floodbase?– Rebrand from Cloud to Street complete, with remarkable coverage. Series A announced, with support from Collaborative, LowerCarbon Capital among others.
• Irrigreen?- Significant hires complete. Hiring for a VP Marketing which would be an awesome job. Shane is an impressive operator.?
• LAIIER?– 8 customers using Severn leak detection unit, including a major UK govt client. Another patent granted.
• NLine Energy?– 3 Microsteam turbines ready for startup and commissioning. Working through the very large pipeline.?
• SewerAI?– Another record month for the team, including another major customer. Executing very well indeed.?
• Shower Stream?– $750k contract with DoD awarded. Saved Extended Stay America?22% of shower water and energy in Phase 1. Pilot expanding.
• Spout?–?Beautiful?new unit design, and capacity now 2.5 gallons per day up from 1.5. More remarkable engineering.?
• StormSensor?– Significant progress with two major Eastern cities. Jeff settling in well, and further funding secured (not in an Elon way).
• SwiftComply?– Company offsite that Tom attended briefly and underwhelmingly. Strong start to the year.
• Ziptility?– Tyler moving back into the sales lead role smoothly, and good progress.?Check out this feedback from a customer?(not the first time they’ve heard this).
• ZwitterCo?– Broke ground for construction of their Technology Innovation Center (TIC); 30k sqft facility expected to be fully operational in Q2
• 2S Water?– Closed another pilot with a multinational (their fourth) to start in Q1.
• 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: 472 (+47)
• Jennie and I went through the logic of further portfolio additions to Fund I, and as expected the answer is that any new company has to be totally unignorable. It looks like we are more or less set for this Fund, and it’s a great group.
• We continue to assess opportunities, and it was two in particular this month that precipitated our deep dive. High quality founders and companies continue to come into the pipeline.

Team

• Welcome to Kane Labrador and Raj Aurora. Kane joins us full time, and Raj will be with us for the next 3 months in Operations & Research, getting a variety of items in place - part of our “growing up” process.
• Lea Engelhardt from Strut Consulting working closely with Tom on the People side of things as we grow. She’s excellent.?

BIV Insight/Visibility

• Marissa’s piece on?Climate Change is Water Change?is a must-read. That 93% of the $70bn in climate tech venture funding went to mitigation in 2022 is necessary, but a very unwise split indeed. Hopefully 2023 is the year the world gets it. Signs are encouraging.
• Kind of Gopi Rangan to have us on the?Sure Shot Entrepreneur Podcast?covering a range of things, not least the determinants of pace in company building in a usually slow industry.??

We’re Reading/Listening/Watching

• 2am in Little America?is excellent - asking “What if it was Americans who were the refugees?” Hard to shake. Not that you want to.?
• Gillian Tett is no fool, so it’s helpful to see her look at the water issue through the?lens of the Colorado River crisis.
• Obviously we’re tracking the Colorado issue closely.?This overview from the Daily?is basic, but instructive. See also?this from the NYT?and?this from the Atlantic.
• Huge congratulations to our investor Xylem on?bringing Evoqua into their company?- the resulting combination will be a very powerful entity indeed in global water.

Things to Work On

• Lea led a hugely valuable 360 feedback process for me. Time management a clear priority. Kane has a job on her hands, poor thing.
• Real focus on getting the team humming, and building our structures.?

Thanks so much as ever. Email?[email protected]?if I can help in any way.