Anorak Ventures
Anorak Ventures is a San Francisco frontier-technology venture firm that backs pre-seed and seed startups in robotics, computer vision, and augmented and virtual reality. Its water footprint is incidental: two seed bets, robotic-sprinkler maker Irrigreen and pipe-inspection AI Subterra AI. As of 2026 Anorak has backed two water companies, both at Seed.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Anorak Ventures is the kind of fund a water search turns up by accident. Greg Castle started Anorak in 2016, a few years after writing one of the early seed cheques into Oculus, and the firm he built backs frontier technology at the earliest stage: robotics, computer vision, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous machines. Water is nowhere in that sentence, and that is rather the point.
Anorak's two tracked water companies are frontier-tech machines that happen to point at water. Anorak backed Irrigreen, whose robotic 'digital sprinkler' uses a single printing nozzle, a map of your yard and live weather data to lay down only the water a lawn actually needs, cutting a household's outdoor use by about half. And Anorak seeded Subterra AI, which turns ordinary sewer-camera footage, even a GoPro clip, into computer vision that reads a pipe and forecasts where it will fail. A robot that prints water onto grass, and a camera that reads a sewer: both are robotics and vision plays first, water plays a distant second.
That is the whole water story here, and it is a short one. Anorak has backed two water companies across two seed rounds, both since 2022, each time riding alongside water-native funds like Burnt Island Ventures, Echo River Capital and Ulu Ventures rather than out in front of them. Anorak is the cleanest example I track of water turning up as a side effect of a technology thesis: when the best robot or the sharpest computer-vision model happens to be aimed at a sprinkler head or a sewer line, Anorak is there, and the rest of the time it is somewhere else entirely.
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 Anorak Ventures invest in?
- Anorak Ventures invests at pre-seed and seed stage in frontier technology: robotics, computer vision, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous systems and connected devices. Water is not a focus area. Anorak's two tracked water companies, Irrigreen and Subterra AI, are robotics and computer-vision startups that happen to apply their technology to water.
- Is Anorak Ventures a water investor?
- Anorak Ventures is not a dedicated water fund; it is a San Francisco frontier-technology seed investor. (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional, because Anorak has backed two water companies, the robotic-sprinkler maker Irrigreen and the pipe-inspection AI firm Subterra AI, both as part of its wider deep-tech portfolio.
- What water companies has Anorak Ventures backed?
- Anorak Ventures has backed two water companies that (don't) Waste Water tracks. Irrigreen makes a robotic 'digital sprinkler' that prints the exact amount of water a lawn needs, cutting outdoor use by about half. Subterra AI uses computer vision to turn sewer-camera footage into automated pipe inspection and failure forecasting.
- Who runs Anorak Ventures?
- Anorak Ventures was founded in 2016 by Greg Castle, its managing partner, an early-stage investor known for an Oculus seed cheque and bets across frontier technology. Charlie Leggate, previously founder of Avie AI, joined as a venture partner. The firm is small, with a handful of people across San Francisco and Los Angeles.
- Where is Anorak Ventures based?
- Anorak Ventures is based in San Francisco, California, with a second presence in Los Angeles. The firm invests largely in United States seed-stage companies, and its two tracked water bets, Irrigreen and Subterra AI, are both American startups.