BIV Monthly Update XLII
This month felt like an inflection into a fascinating new chapter, holding our third AGM, participating in Xylem’s excellent Partnership Accelerator and World Water Day events, and an exhilarating (exhausting?) amount more. Thank you as ever for following our progress, and here if we can help.
BIV Monthly Update – April 3, 2024
“Kinda crept up on you didn’t it?” Paul Spericki, Grosse Pointe Blank
Highlights
We hosted our third Annual General Meeting on Thursday. These are a big deal for us, showcasing our work, team and partners to our customers - our exceptional group of LPs. Mercifully (and thanks to a mountain of hard work from the team), it went very well.
Delighted to participate with Steve in the Xylem Partnerships Accelerator which was brilliantly planned and executed by Sivan Zamir, Max Storto, Brianne Nakamura and the team. Burnt Islanders SewerAI, SwiftComply, and LAIIER also participated and all of us were so impressed.
Also jazzed to be at the Reservoir Center with Xylem and many others on World Water Day, as well as to be repping water at Confluence Philanthropy’s Advisors Forum in Denver.
International Women’s Day was a welcome chance to celebrate so many of our colleagues and partners - but hopefully we do it more than one day a year.
A thrill to be named to the Impact Assets 50 for the third year running. Thank you to all the team.
April Asks
Send good vibes (voting is closed) for Aclarity as Breakthrough Company of the Year at the Global Water Summit
Invoice/bookings/working capital financing for consumer hardware. Any ideas, please let us know.
Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule, and if you like it, spread the word. Actually, spread the word regardless.
Sign up here to attend forthcoming BIV Sessions.
Point the smartest people you know to the BIV Jobs Board or talent network.
BIV Portfolio Updates
This is the last month we will feature only Fund I companies. The Fund II companies are coming, and they are equally excellent. A rubicon being crossed!
ZwitterCo – Recognized by Fast Company as a 2024 Most Innovative Company.
2S Water – Presented their technology to 200 members of the Eramet Ideas team in Trappes last week. Solid deployment progress.
Aclarity – Shortlisted for the Global Water Summit Breakthrough Company of the Year. Fingers crossed!
Aquafortus – Sterling work by the NZ team to make huge strides on their technoeconomic model. They have pulled together excellently. A big month ahead.
Beagle Services - Paul joined InsurTech Denver - hosted their annual #smarthomeinsurance panel. There appears to be an avalanche of demand incoming.
CivilGrid – New partnership with SRT Consultants. Joined PG&E’s first Innovation Summit and Pitch Fest.
Daupler – John did an excellent job on the Fundamental Molecule. Moving across $9m booked, first seven figure entry ACV opportunities in the pipeline.
Floodbase – Honored by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. Some really strong plans in place, as they zero in on their GtM motion.
Irrigreen – Steve was delighted to spend some time with Shane in Denver. The business is in a great postiion.
LAIIER – Team took LOPEC by storm. Great webinar with Insurtech Insights hosted by their new Customer Success Manager. More to come… Some fascinating interest in their Series A.
NLine Energy – More strides after the Series B. Onboarded electrical engineering team, and sales strategy is in place.
SewerAI – Great presentations at the Underground Infrastructure Conference, and to partners in California’s Antelope Valley. Some wild answers to the strangest things found in our pipes (no April Fools here).
Shower Stream – Moving towards larger rollout with ESA.
Spout – Fascinating inbound demand for their round from their customers. Reuben and Tyler’s hustle is really something. They’ll get their first production run started in May.
SwiftComply – 34th Annual Cross Connection Control Conference in Daytona Beach (but you already knew that), P3S Conference in Anaheim. Market hustle!
Ziptility – Across $600k in ARR. Added 4 new states in Q1. Cranking out customer onboarding. Sales motion is hitting its stride. Nice momentum on their recently launched newsletter.
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: 1025 (+70)
Two fascinating potential additions to the Fund II portfolio, and the quality remains very high indeed. Delighted to sign our third deal in Fund II, and we’re going deep on two more. Massive kudos to our Spring Associate Caroline for sterling work in all sorts of areas.
Team
Tremendous effort pulling together our AGM. It’s such an important event, and that we pulled it off despite me getting fairly spectacularly ill on the Saturday before (and only really re-emerging on Wednesday) shows how redundant I’m becoming (kidding, but not really). Brava/o, team. The feedback has been gratifying.
Great rhythm of national event coverage - we’re really upping our visibility game, and taking it international this month! Let us know if you will be at the Global Water Summit.
BIV Insight/Visibility
BIV Named to ImpactAssets 50 List as an Emerging Manager for the third time in a row.
Two new episodes from The Fundamental Molecule with John Bertrand, Co-Founder and CEO at Daupler and Adam Tank, Co-founder and CCO at Transcend.
Tom was on a great panel about the intersection of art, impact, and natural resources at Confluence Philanthropy’s Advisors Forum in Denver. Awesome to see some LPs there too (hi Greg, Aaron, Jonathan).
Steve and Tom on panels for the Xylem Partnership Accelerator event, and Tom made everyone else look good on World Water Day, hosted by the brilliant Radhika Fox.
If you'd like to hear more about upcoming BIV events, please add events@burntislandventures.com to your address book.
We’re Reading/Listening/Watching
Excellent NYT piece on the water reckoning in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India.
Who are the Climate Tech Investors? - A new interactive Climate Capital Stack Map from CTVC
Good piece in the FT on the investment opportunity in water tech featuring three friends of ours. Part of a broader Special Report on the Future of Water.
Beach read post-AGM was The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz. Brought back memories of the theatre. Fewer people actually died in our productions (some egos were injured).
Scaling from $1 to $10 million ARR - Part of an extended course from Bessemer Venture Partners on GtM
The Wall stopping City from scoring for the first time in 56 home games.
