Emerald Technology Ventures

As of March 2026, Emerald Technology Ventures pulled its second Global Water Fund up to a 100 million euro milestone, after a 60 million euro first close late in 2025, which in plain terms means the firm has just topped up the dry powder (the money it has committed and ready to invest) it points specifically at water. The cornerstone backer is Singapore's Temasek, joined by the Grundfos Foundation and a handful of industrial strategics, and the target is somewhere in the 150 to 180 million euro range. For a firm that started life two and a half decades ago as a broad cleantech investor, that is a real statement about where it now sees the opportunity.

Emerald is not a water-only fund, and that is the first thing worth understanding about it. Gina Domanig founded the firm in Zurich back in 2000 as the first independent cleantech venture capital fund in Europe, and water has always shared the table with energy, advanced materials and packaging, industrial AI, and food and agriculture. What makes the water story credible is that Emerald did not dabble: it stood up a dedicated water practice under Helge Daebel in 2006 and has run it as its own discipline ever since, which is why a generalist firm can still write water cheques that water specialists take seriously.

Emerald writes mid-sized cheques and tends to drive the bus. Across its 14 water companies and 15 deals it has led roughly six rounds in ten, which for a newcomer reading this means Emerald usually sets the terms and takes a board seat rather than quietly following someone else's lead, and its typical first cheque lands in the 3.5 to 15 million dollar range. The water portfolio is a tour of the unglamorous plumbing the sector actually needs: leak detection from FIDO Tech and Aganova, AI-driven sewer inspection, smart irrigation at Kilimo, nature-based treatment from the Water and Carbon Group, and rapid microbiological testing at bNovate. These are digital water and treatment bets, the kind of software and kit that keeps existing systems running, rather than the heavy concrete of new infrastructure.

Emerald also just proved it can get money back out, which in venture is the only proof that counts. In June 2026 it announced a successful exit from SewerAI, the California start-up whose software reads CCTV footage of aging sewers, after a strategic investor took the company on. Pair that with a track record that already includes water exits to industrial buyers like SUEZ and Xylem, and the picture is a firm that has been patient enough to sit in water for twenty-plus years and is now closing a fresh fund to do more of it.