Bluewater
Bluewater is a Swedish water purification company that also backs and acquires point-of-use water startups. Founded in Stockholm in 2013 by Blueair founder Bengt Rittri, it has supported three water-quality companies from Seed to Series B, and gone on to buy two of them outright, FloWater and TAPP Water.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Bluewater is not really a fund, and that is the most interesting thing about it. It is a Stockholm water-purification company that invests in its own neighbourhood. Bengt Rittri started it in 2013 as his second act, after he sold his air-purifier company Blueair to Unilever and decided to point the same engineering instinct at drinking water instead of indoor air.
Bluewater's three tracked investments all sit in one tight category: point-of-use water quality. FloWater builds the refill stations you see in airports and offices, TAPP Water makes faucet-mounted filters out of Barcelona, and Microlyze works on real-time water testing. There is no scattergun here, no climate-flag tourism, just companies that put cleaner water at the exact point a person drinks it, from Seed through Series B.
Bluewater is the rare backer that buys what it funds. It came into FloWater as a Series B investor in 2018 and merged with the Denver company in 2022, with Rittri taking the helm of the combined business. It backed TAPP Water alongside the German impact fund Yabeo, then acquired it in 2023. So the "Occasional" water rating in my Leviathan data undersells the intent: Bluewater tends to end up owning what it backs.
Bluewater, for a newcomer trying to place it, is best read as a water operator that uses investment and acquisition as product strategy, rolling adjacent point-of-use companies into one global purification group rather than chasing financial returns across a wide portfolio. Where most investors want a board seat, Bluewater wants the whole company.
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 · 3 water companies
Frequently asked
- What does Bluewater invest in?
- Bluewater backs point-of-use water-quality companies, the products that clean water at the moment someone drinks it. Its three tracked investments are FloWater refill stations, TAPP Water faucet filters, and Microlyze water testing, spanning Seed to Series B. It often moves from investor to full owner.
- Who runs Bluewater?
- Bluewater is led by Bengt Rittri, the Swedish environmental entrepreneur who founded it in Stockholm in 2013. He previously built the air-purifier company Blueair and sold it to Unilever, then put the proceeds and the same engineering focus into drinking water.
- Where is Bluewater based?
- Bluewater is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, where Bengt Rittri founded it in 2013. After merging with the Denver-based refill-station maker FloWater in 2022, the combined business now operates globally while keeping its Swedish water-purification roots.
- Is Bluewater a private equity firm or a water company?
- Bluewater is primarily a Swedish water-purification product company that also makes strategic investments and acquisitions in adjacent startups. It is not a traditional venture or private-equity fund. It backs point-of-use water businesses, then frequently merges them into its own group, as it did with FloWater and TAPP Water.
- How many water companies has Bluewater backed?
- Bluewater has backed three water companies, FloWater, TAPP Water, and Microlyze, across four disclosed funding rounds from Seed to Series B. It has since acquired two of them outright, FloWater in 2022 and TAPP Water in 2023, folding them into its purification group.