GiantLeap Capital
GiantLeap Capital is a New York-based, tech-focused growth-equity firm, not a water fund. It backs emerging-technology companies scaling mission-critical products across industrials, energy, digital infrastructure, healthcare, and AI. As of 2026, (don't) Waste Water tracks a single water holding, the ceramic-membrane maker Membrion, across three deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
GiantLeap Capital launched in New York in 2020 as a structured growth-equity platform, built by investors who spent careers in technology, infrastructure, and special-situations finance. Its thesis is emerging technology, not water: it backs companies scaling mission-critical products across industrials, energy, digital infrastructure, healthcare, and artificial intelligence, from the data-center operator Vantage to the silicon-photonics maker Ayar Labs.
GiantLeap Capital reaches water sideways, through a single bet whose technology happens to clean it. The firm runs no water fund and names no water partner; water sits inside a generalist book alongside AI, defense electronics, and data centers. For a sector used to specialist water funds and strategic utility money, a tech-convergence growth investor is an unusual name to see backing a water company at all.
GiantLeap Capital's one water holding is Membrion, a Seattle company whose ceramic ion-exchange membranes recover and recycle water inside the harsh industrial wastewater that conventional polymer membranes struggle with. Co-founder Himanshu Sekhar sits on Membrion's board, and GiantLeap has backed the company next to dedicated water funds such as PureTerra Ventures and Safar Partners. In all, (don't) Waste Water tracks one GiantLeap water company across three deals.
GiantLeap Capital, for a water founder, is a long-shot but real cheque: a generalist technology investor that has wandered into water exactly once, through materials science rather than infrastructure. The open question is whether Membrion stays a one-off or the first sign that GiantLeap starts treating industrial water as a genuine lane inside its energy-and-environment thesis.
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
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does GiantLeap Capital invest in?
- GiantLeap Capital is a tech-focused growth-equity firm, not a water specialist. It backs emerging-technology companies across industrials, energy, digital infrastructure, healthcare, and AI, from data centers to silicon photonics. The only water holding (don't) Waste Water tracks is Membrion, a ceramic-membrane company, across three deals.
- Is GiantLeap Capital a water fund?
- No. GiantLeap Capital is a New York growth-equity platform with no water fund, no water team, and no water thesis. Water appears incidentally through one portfolio company, Membrion, whose ceramic ion-exchange membranes recover and recycle water inside industrial wastewater streams.
- Who runs GiantLeap Capital?
- GiantLeap Capital was co-founded in 2020 by managing partners Himanshu Sekhar and Samir Parikh. Parikh, a Harvard Business School graduate, previously invested at Fir Tree Partners and UBS Capital. Sekhar represents the firm on the board of Membrion, its sole water-technology holding.
- Where is GiantLeap Capital based?
- GiantLeap Capital is headquartered in New York City and invests across North America. The firm describes itself as a tech-convergence growth-equity platform and runs a small core team of roughly a dozen, backed by a wider bench of operating and fund advisors.
- Is GiantLeap Capital the same as Giant Leap, the Australian fund?
- No. GiantLeap Capital is a New York tech-focused growth-equity firm co-founded by Himanshu Sekhar and Samir Parikh. It is unrelated to Giant Leap, the Australian impact venture fund, and to similarly named startup accelerators. They share only the words 'giant leap.'