Bpifrance
Bpifrance is France's public investment bank, a state-owned fund that finances French companies from startup to stock-market listing. Water is a small but growing slice of its deeptech investing: it backs early-stage startups that pull drinking water from the air, desalinate seawater, and recycle it on site. As of 2026, Bpifrance has backed 8 water companies across 9 deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Bpifrance is an unusual name to find in the water world, because it is not a private fund at all: it is the French state's own investment bank, created in 2012 by merging the country's public financing bodies into one institution that backs French companies from their first cheque all the way to a stock-market listing. Water is a small, deliberate line in a very large deeptech book, its bets on the science-heavy, research-based startups France wants to grow at home.
Bpifrance's water bets cluster around scarcity and going off-grid, where the public pipes never reached. Several of its companies make water out of thin air: Kumulus Water and ilion Water Technologies build machines that condense drinking water straight from humidity, while Adionics pulls fresh water from brine using an ion-absorbing liquid, Etteliot treats urine on site for camper vans and tiny houses, and Luniwave recycles shower water for hotels. The thread running through them is decentralised water for places where infrastructure is thin.
Bpifrance is an early-stage backer here, writing cheques from pre-seed through Series A, the first rounds of outside money a startup takes, often channelled through France 2030, the government's deeptech programme, and regional partners like the Ile-de-France. It rarely takes the lead: across the rounds (don't) Waste Water tracks it has led just one, sitting in alongside co-investors such as Credit Agricole, Banque Populaire and Sofinnova Partners rather than steering the deal. Eight water companies across nine deals, at cheque sizes that run from roughly a million dollars at seed to the tens of millions at later stages.
Bpifrance set out a new 2026 to 2030 plan in October 2025 that names ecological transition one of three pillars and earmarks 35 billion euros for climate, covering renewable energy, biodiversity and decarbonisation. Water is not yet a named pillar of its own, so for a newcomer the place to watch is the greentech and France 2030 deal flow rather than a dedicated water fund: this is how a sovereign-scale bank quietly underwrites the riskiest, earliest water technology in France.
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 · 8 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Bpifrance invest in?
- Bpifrance invests across the whole French economy, from loans and guarantees to direct equity and venture capital, with a heavy focus on deeptech, industry and the ecological transition. In water, it backs early-stage startups working on atmospheric water generation, desalination, and on-site water reuse, mostly at pre-seed to Series A.
- Is Bpifrance a public or a private investor?
- Bpifrance is public. It is France's state-owned investment bank, created in 2012 and jointly held by the French state and the Caisse des Depots. It finances and invests in French companies as a public-interest body, which is why it often co-invests alongside private funds rather than competing with them.
- Who runs Bpifrance?
- Bpifrance has been led since 2013 by chief executive Nicolas Dufourcq. Its innovation and direct venture investing, which covers most of its deeptech and water bets, is run by Paul-François Fournier, Senior Executive Vice President for Innovation, with sustainability steered by CSR director Philippe Kunter.
- What water companies has Bpifrance backed?
- Bpifrance has backed 8 water companies tracked by (don't) Waste Water across 9 deals, including Kumulus Water and ilion Water Technologies in atmospheric water generation, Adionics in desalination, and Etteliot and Luniwave in on-site water reuse. It invests from pre-seed to Series B.
- Where is Bpifrance based?
- Bpifrance is headquartered in Paris, on Boulevard Haussmann, and operates from more than 50 regional offices across France. Founded in 2012, it is the country's national public investment bank, and most of its water investments are French deeptech startups it backs close to home through programmes like France 2030.