At One Ventures
At One Ventures is a San Francisco venture capital (VC) firm that backs early-stage deep-tech startups aiming to make humanity a net positive to nature, across air, water, soil and biodiversity. Founded in 2020 by former Google X leader Tom Chi, it manages $525 million across two funds. As of 2026 it has backed 2 water companies across 2 deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
At One Ventures was started in 2020 by Tom Chi, a founding member of Google X, after he watched a coral reef near his home fade from every colour of the rainbow to grey in a matter of months. That story is the whole thesis in miniature: most climate funds count carbon, and At One counts nature. Air, water, soil and biodiversity all sit on its scorecard, which is why a fund few people would file under water keeps turning up on water deals.
At One Ventures backs early-stage deep tech, the kind of hard science that can rewrite the unit economics of a dirty industry rather than just trim its emissions. Across the water companies (don't) Waste Water tracks, the pattern is consistent: At One funds the materials science and chemistry underneath water treatment, not the utilities that run it. Think novel sorbents that pull contaminants out of water and engineered membranes that filter it, the molecular layer most generalist climate funds skip.
At One Ventures runs a deliberately science-heavy bench. Founding partner Laurie Menoud trained as a biotechnologist, co-founder Helen Lin came up through investment banking, and principal Danae Robert holds a green-chemistry degree she puts to work pressure-testing whether a materials startup's claims will actually hold up. It is a team built to judge the lab, not just the slide deck, which fits a fund whose best bets live or die on whether the chemistry works at scale.
At One Ventures manages about $525 million across two funds, after closing a $375 million second fund in October 2023, which hands a nature-first thesis the kind of balance sheet most mission-driven funds never reach. The question worth watching is whether 'net positive to nature' stays a hard screen or softens into a slogan as the cheques get bigger. For now, At One is one of the few funds willing to treat water as a first-class line in a climate thesis rather than a footnote.
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 At One Ventures invest in?
- At One Ventures invests in early-stage deep-tech startups that aim to make humanity a net positive to nature, spanning energy, materials, food and agriculture, carbon and biodiversity. Within that mandate it backs water companies working on treatment chemistry and filtration membranes, two of which (don't) Waste Water tracks.
- Is At One Ventures a water fund?
- At One Ventures is a broad nature-positive deep-tech fund, not a water-only fund. Water is one of several natural systems it backs, alongside air, soil and biodiversity. Within that slice it has funded 2 water companies across 2 deals, according to (don't) Waste Water's data.
- Who runs At One Ventures?
- At One Ventures was founded in 2020 by Tom Chi, a founding member of Google X, who serves as its managing partner. He co-founded the firm with Laurie Menoud and Helen Lin, and the investment team also includes partners Brian Steinberg and Luke Zhan and principal Danae Robert.
- How big is At One Ventures?
- At One Ventures manages about $525 million across two funds. It closed a $375 million second fund in October 2023, several times the size of its 2020 debut fund. That scale is unusually large for a fund built around a nature-positive rather than purely carbon-focused thesis.
- Is At One Ventures the same as OneVentures or Type One Ventures?
- No. At One Ventures is the San Francisco nature-positive deep-tech firm founded by Tom Chi. It is unrelated to similarly named funds such as Australia's OneVentures, Type One Ventures, One Way Ventures or Version One Ventures, which share the word 'one' but have different teams and theses.