BIV Monthly Update XLIII

Monthly Updates
Written By Tom Ferguson

BIV Monthly Update – May 5, 2024

“A little bit of pain never hurt anybody. If you know what I mean.” Soap, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Highlights

  • It was a delight to have 34 of our LPs, prospective LPs, partners, founders and network (and my parents!) to dinner in London ahead of the Global Water Summit. An excellent evening, and more of them to come in other cities. Next up are Geneva, NYC and Singapore. 

  • Welcoming WovenEarth Ventures to the BIV fold. Jane, Mauricia, Denise and all the team are such a pleasure to work with. We were thrilled to meet their exacting standards in the DD process. 

  • Christine and Steve joined the Imagine H2O team for their first in-person startup summit since 2019. An excellent event, and fantastic to have our newest Burnt Islander among them (drumroll…).

  • Closing in on our fourth investment in an AI company in the O&M (operations and maintenance) space, our first in Singapore.

  • Our second and third Series B rounds from Fund I confirmed. Excellent execution by both teams. 

  • There is a really pleasing rhythm and tone to our work together as a group. It’s not yet the machine that it will be, but it’s already a rather good one.  

May Asks

BIV Portfolio Updates

We’re now in the brave new world of giving you the latest on the Burnt Islanders across Fund I and Fund II…

Fund I

  • 2S Water – Opening a Seed extension to unlock significant grant funding. Excellent commercial progress, with 6 units booked YTD and their S(ensing)aaS model confirmed. 

  • Aclarity – Finalist for Emerging Water Technology of the Year at the Global Water Awards. Their Octa unit is on site in Vermont and the schedule for their mobile trailer(s) is heating up.

  • Aquafortus – The results of the TEA exercise were right on the money. They have a clear path to a mass market cost and profitability structure. Another big month ahead. 

  • Beagle Services - The demand wave is well and truly here. 178% Q1 ‘23 to Q1’24 growth and there is an enormous amount of interest from insurers in particular to obviate home leaks. 

  • CivilGrid – Selected as a finalist in the NextEra Energy Investments Seed Competition (highly competitive, and a huge deal as it can open up the Florida market). 

  • Daupler – A remarkable inbound enquiry early in April that could become a mid-seven figure entry deal and open up a very large market indeed. In great shape ahead of the Series B. 

  • Floodbase –  Significant commercial progress in Q1 which is great to see. Provided data for this CNN article on the Dubai floods.

  • Irrigreen – Shane has shown exceptional process for his forthcoming round. Featured on Fox & Friends on its Earth Day episode.

  • LAIIER – Considerable demand for their Seed Extension. Included in Cemex Ventures' 2024 Cleantech Construction Map. Pipeline continues to build, major closes expected this month.

  • NLine Energy – Hit their (ambitious) YTD numbers, including a $4.2m deal, their largest to date. Onboarding an in-house electrical engineering team. Harvesting margin. 

  • SewerAI – Completed their impressive Series B. Featured in the April issue of Municipal Water Leader (which is TIME magazine in our world). 

  • Shower Stream – Steady progress to full commercial deployments. There’s a great company to be built here. 

  • Spout – Still moving through the fundraise, and have done an extraordinary job of engaging with their first customers. Very impressive. Won an iF Design Award.

  • SwiftComply – Great show at the ABPA conference in Charlotte, the commercial engine is improving with every month.  

  • Ziptility – Maxed out their Seed extension, including 3 BIV LPs. Working closely with customers in the Midwest that dealt with tornadoes and severe storms in the past month. Led a joint session on Asset Management Plan with the Alliance of Indiana Rural Water - AIRW.

  • ZwitterCo – Very deeply impressive performance in Q1 and will be duly rewarded with the capital resources for the next stage of company building at the Series B. Won an Edison Award.

Fund II

  • Unannounced Water Heater Company (Announcing Summer ‘24) - Will be able to grant fund their first manufacturing line. Exceptional execution. Their first “works-like” model is already a 19% improvement on the performance of the best competitor. The DOE’s latest energy efficiency standards just supercharged their market.

  • HOPE Hydration - Installed at Coachella and Stagecoach, and two F1 races. Partnered with Nike and Liquid I.V. for the South Beach Run Club. Sold Sony Music (5020 Records) another Times Square slot. Extraordinary ad deal on the table that would give them a serious growth platform.

  • Unannounced AI Company (Announcing Imminently) - Round closed. Great show at Texas Water. Selected to participate in Imagine H2O's 2024 Accelerator. Building commercial momentum. 

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: 1093 (+68) 

  • The quality of the late stage pipeline is high. Bolstered by some excellent research undertaken by our Spring Associate Caroline we are exploring some high potential deals at the water-decarbonization nexus, as well as some novel tech in water infrastructure and desalination.

  • We are moving in on the likely first deals for the Opportunity Fund. A shame to miss the first two Series Bs of 2024, but the quality of the growth market is why we’re raising it, so important proof points for us.

 Team

  • A HUGE thank you to the excellent Caroline Zepecki who completed her time with us. She was a huge asset, with a standard of output which made me embarrassed about my own internships as an undergrad. She got game. 

 BIV Insight/Visibility

  • The first of Jennie’s pieces on our DD process and framework is on the importance of pain. It’s the beginning of the road for almost all of our companies for a variety of quite involved reasons. Read more here. 

  • Jessica gave a really thoughtful first interview in her announcement piece (read it here). She’s a huge addition to what we’re doing. 

  • Caroline has moved us a long way through a granular argument about the links between Water and GHGs. Much more to follow here, but the degree to which water is overlooked in the global GHG portfolio is perplexing to say the least. We want to help change that. 

  • Both Steve and I were on the roster at the Global Water Summit, me talking about water in the context of climate VC (spoiler: it is almost entirely overlooked, but that will be changing), and Steve talking about the long-term financial opportunity in water on an all-star panel.

  • Christine and Steve reprazenting at the Imagine H2O event which by all accounts was exceptional. I was gutted not to be there, but I had a prior engagement testing the patience of some excellent NYU Stern students.

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

We’re Reading/Listening/Watching

Things to Work On

  • A lapse in communication from me led to misalignment with a company this month, and I felt terrible about it. This job is about making sure each spinning plate is tended to, and I let one drop. 

Tom Ferguson
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