Capricorn Investment Group
Capricorn Investment Group is a sustainable-investing firm in Palo Alto and New York, founded by eBay's first president Jeff Skoll. As of end-2025 it managed about $19 billion, and its Technology Impact Fund makes the deep-tech climate bets, which as of 2026 include 3 water companies across 5 deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Capricorn Investment Group is the house that eBay built. Jeff Skoll, the company's first president, set it up around the year 2000 to manage his own fortune on a single contrarian bet: that sustainable investing can beat the market, not just soothe a conscience. Twenty-five years later it runs about $19 billion for families, foundations and institutions, and Skoll's early backing of Tesla, SpaceX and Planet earned the firm a name for funding hard science long before it was fashionable.
Capricorn does its deep-tech investing through the Technology Impact Fund, co-led by co-founder Ion Yadigaroglu and Dipender Saluja, and that is where water shows up. The fund leaves municipal pipes and treatment plants to others. What it backs instead are the places where water and the energy transition collide: Summit Nanotech pulls lithium straight out of salt brine without the sprawling evaporation ponds that drink a desert dry, and Magrathea pulls magnesium metal out of seawater. Capricorn treats water as the medium the materials transition runs through, not as a sector of its own.
Capricorn's water list is short and eclectic, three companies across five deals, and it also includes Larq, which sells self-cleaning UV water bottles, a long way from industrial brine. Capricorn is a climate-and-impact generalist that wanders into water when the chemistry of the energy transition demands it. For a newcomer, Capricorn is the clearest example I track of water riding in on the coattails of the lithium and battery boom, and it is worth watching for where that boom forces the next water problem.
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 Capricorn Investment Group invest in?
- Capricorn Investment Group invests across sustainable and impact strategies, from public markets to private deep-tech venture. Its Technology Impact Fund backs climate and hard-science startups, and within that its water exposure runs to brine and seawater resource extraction, such as lithium from salt brine and magnesium from the sea, plus consumer water products.
- Who runs Capricorn Investment Group?
- Capricorn Investment Group was founded around 2000 by Jeff Skoll, eBay's first president, who chairs the firm. Its deep-tech and climate investing, where the water bets sit, runs through the Technology Impact Fund, co-led by co-founder Ion Yadigaroglu and Dipender Saluja, with partners William Orum, Michaela Edwards and Mark Berryman.
- Where is Capricorn Investment Group based?
- Capricorn Investment Group is based in Palo Alto, California, with a second office in New York City. Founded around 2000 by eBay's first president Jeff Skoll, the firm managed about $19 billion in mission-aligned, multi-asset portfolios for families, foundations and institutions as of the end of 2025.
- How many water companies has Capricorn Investment Group backed?
- Capricorn Investment Group has backed 3 water companies across 5 deals tracked by Leviathan: Summit Nanotech in direct lithium extraction from brine, Magrathea in seawater magnesium, and Larq in self-cleaning water bottles. (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Committed, with a score of 74 out of 100.
- Is Capricorn Investment Group the same as Capricorn Group in Namibia?
- No. This Capricorn Investment Group is the US sustainable-investing firm founded by Jeff Skoll, based in Palo Alto and New York. It is unrelated to Capricorn Group, the Namibian banking and financial-services company sometimes listed as Capricorn Investment Group Limited, which shares the name but nothing else.