Valor Equity Partners
Valor Equity Partners is a Chicago based growth-equity firm, founded in 1995 and an early backer of Tesla and SpaceX, that holds a small set of water-adjacent investments. In water it backs companies that treat brine and wastewater as resources: Lilac Solutions, Magrathea, and Biobot Analytics. As of 2026 it has joined three water deals, leading one.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Valor Equity Partners is a generalist growth-equity firm that happens to own a few of the most interesting water-adjacent companies around. Growth equity means it buys stakes in fast-scaling private companies, and Antonio Gracias started it in Chicago in 1995. It grew famous for writing some of the earliest institutional cheques into Tesla and SpaceX. Water sits at the industrial edge of its portfolio, never at its center.
Valor touches water only at that industrial edge, where the liquid is a resource to be mined or read, not a utility to be run. Two of its bets pull critical minerals out of salty water: Lilac Solutions, whose ceramic beads extract lithium straight from brine for electric-vehicle batteries, and Magrathea, which runs an electrolytic process to make magnesium metal from seawater and brine. The common thread is brine as a mine, not a waste stream.
Valor's third water bet reads water rather than refines it. In June 2025 Valor led a new funding round into Biobot Analytics, the MIT-born company that turned sewage into a public-health sensor during the pandemic, and partner Vivek Pattipati took a board seat. Biobot's pitch is that a city's wastewater is a continuous, anonymous readout of its health.
Valor Equity Partners is the opposite of a pure-play water investor, meaning a fund that backs nothing but water. It is a deep-pocketed generalist that wades into water only when a deal rides on a bigger thesis about energy, minerals, or public health. For a newcomer that is the lesson: Valor is a useful name to know and a hard one to pitch on water alone. Its three water deals are a window into where industrial capital thinks the next resource plays are. (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Committed.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 3 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Valor Equity Partners invest in?
- Valor Equity Partners is a growth-equity firm that backs fast-scaling companies across consumer, infrastructure, manufacturing, and technology. It is best known for early investments in Tesla and SpaceX. Its water exposure is small and industrial, concentrated in companies that extract minerals from brine or turn wastewater into health data.
- Is Valor Equity Partners a water fund?
- Valor Equity Partners is not a dedicated water fund. It is a generalist growth investor that has made three water-adjacent bets where water overlaps a bigger thesis on minerals, energy, or public health. For a pure-play water investor that backs only water, Valor is not the right fit.
- What water companies has Valor Equity Partners backed?
- Valor Equity Partners has backed three water companies tracked by (don't) Waste Water: Lilac Solutions, which extracts lithium from brine; Magrathea, which makes magnesium metal from seawater and brine; and Biobot Analytics, a wastewater-intelligence platform whose 2025 round Valor led.
- Who runs Valor Equity Partners?
- Valor Equity Partners was founded in 1995 by Antonio Gracias, who serves as chief executive and chief investment officer. The firm is run from Chicago with an office in Palo Alto, and its partners include Co-Presidents Jon Shulkin and Juan Sabater alongside investment partners such as Vivek Pattipati.
- Is Valor Equity Partners the same as Valor Ventures or Valor Capital Group?
- Valor Equity Partners is a Chicago growth-equity firm and is not the same as Valor Ventures, an Atlanta seed fund, or Valor Capital Group, a Brazil-focused investor. It is also separate from Valor Siren Ventures, the food and retail fund Valor runs jointly with Starbucks.