2048 Ventures
2048 Ventures is a New York and Boston pre-seed and seed fund backing Vertical AI, deep tech, health, and bio founders, not a water specialist. Water runs through just two of its bets. As of January 2026 it closed an oversubscribed $82M Fund III, and (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Committed.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
2048 Ventures closed an oversubscribed $82M Fund III in January 2026, its third and largest pool after a $27M first fund in 2019 and a $67M second in 2022. Founder Alex Iskold built the firm around speed, a former Techstars New York managing director and five-time founder known for committing to a first cheque in days rather than months. The fund size, a precise $82,048,000, is the engineer's in-joke you would expect from a firm named after two to the power of eleven.
2048 Ventures is a generalist pre-seed and seed fund, not a water house. It leads the first institutional round in Vertical AI, deep tech, health, and bio companies, writing $500K to $3M cheques from offices in New York and Boston, and water is something it has backed twice rather than a sector it set out to chase. For a newcomer that distinction matters: this is a software-and-science generalist that occasionally meets a water company it likes, not a fund built for the category.
2048 Ventures' two water names both sit at the sensor-and-data edge of the sector. Gybe, which it led at pre-seed, monitors whole watersheds in real time by pairing machine-vision sensors with satellite imagery, while H2Ok Innovations builds spectroscopy-based sensors that watch for contamination inside industrial pipes and liquids. Both are instrumentation-and-software plays, which is exactly where a deep-tech generalist is most comfortable wading into water.
2048 Ventures now has fresh Fund III capital to deploy, and its water exposure will most likely stay opportunistic rather than deliberate. The thing to watch here is not a water mandate but the firm's deep-tech and AI deal flow, because a third water company will only show up when a founder building water instrumentation happens to fit the same software-first pattern that drew it to Gybe and H2Ok in the first place.
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 · 2 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does 2048 Ventures invest in?
- 2048 Ventures leads pre-seed and seed rounds in Vertical AI, deep tech, health, and bio startups, writing $500K to $3M first cheques from New York and Boston. It is a generalist, not a water fund: only 2 of its portfolio companies are water-related, which is why (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Committed.
- Is 2048 Ventures a water fund?
- 2048 Ventures is not a water fund. It is a generalist early-stage venture firm, and water shows up in just two of its bets: Gybe and H2Ok Innovations, both water-quality sensor and data companies. Its water exposure is incidental to a much larger Vertical AI, deep tech, health, and bio portfolio.
- Who runs 2048 Ventures?
- 2048 Ventures was founded by Alex Iskold, its Managing Partner and a five-time founder who previously ran Techstars New York. The partnership also includes Zann Ali and Julie Wolf, PhD, a former IndieBio chief science officer, with Daniella Cohen as Principal. The investment team is based in New York and Boston.
- How big is 2048 Ventures and its latest fund?
- 2048 Ventures closed an oversubscribed $82M Fund III in January 2026, its third and largest fund after a $27M Fund I in 2019 and a $67M Fund II in 2022. The fresh capital backs pre-seed and seed founders across Vertical AI, deep tech, health, and bio.
- What water companies has 2048 Ventures backed?
- 2048 Ventures has backed 2 water companies: Gybe, which monitors entire watersheds in real time using machine-vision sensors and satellite imagery, and H2Ok Innovations, which builds spectroscopy-based sensors for contamination in industrial liquids. Both sit at the sensor-and-data edge of water, where a deep-tech generalist is most at home.