Forage Capital Partners
Forage Capital Partners is a Calgary-based growth-equity fund that invests across the agriculture and food value chain, from crop inputs to branded food. Its single water connection is nutrient recovery: turning wastewater into fertilizer. As of June 2026, Forage runs a $150 million fund and has backed one water company, Ostara, across two deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Forage Capital Partners is not a water fund, and it would not claim to be one. Forage is a Calgary growth-equity investor that backs companies across the entire agriculture and food chain, from the fertilizer and crop inputs at one end to branded food on the shelf at the other, stepping in when an established business hits a moment of disruption and needs capital to grow through it. Water shows up in exactly one place in that chain: the nutrients.
Forage's single water holding is Ostara, the one water company in its portfolio that I track in the Leviathan database. Ostara pulls phosphorus and nitrogen out of municipal and industrial wastewater, the same nutrients that otherwise wash into rivers and feed the algae blooms that choke them, and crystallises them into a slow-release fertilizer sold as Crystal Green. The pollutant a treatment plant pays to remove becomes the fertilizer a farmer pays to buy. For a food-and-ag fund, that is water investing that looks exactly like agriculture investing.
Forage's water exposure begins and ends with Ostara, across the two deals the funds directory counts, which is why (don't) Waste Water rates the firm an occasional water investor rather than a specialist. The fund is run by founder Jim Taylor and fellow managing director Steven Leakos, both veteran Canadian growth-equity investors with roots at Roynat, Avrio and decades of ag-and-food financing. If you are hunting for a dedicated water portfolio, Forage is not it; but if you want to see how the water problem reaches into food and farming, its single nutrient-recovery bet is a sharp little illustration of where the two industries already overlap.
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 · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Forage Capital Partners invest in?
- Forage Capital Partners invests across the agriculture and food value chain, from crop inputs and fertilizer to food processing, equipment and branded food companies. It is a growth-equity fund, meaning it backs established businesses scaling through change. In (don't) Waste Water's database, its lone water company is wastewater-nutrient-recovery firm Ostara.
- Who runs Forage Capital Partners?
- Forage Capital Partners was founded by Jim Taylor, its managing director, who has built and run seven funds over more than twenty years and raised over $500 million of growth capital for agriculture and food. Fellow managing director Steven Leakos joined from Roynat Capital and Avrio, deepening the firm's private-equity bench.
- Where is Forage Capital Partners based?
- Forage Capital Partners is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and invests across North American agriculture and food businesses. Its single water-related holding, Ostara, recovers nutrients from wastewater at treatment plants in the United States and beyond, turning recovered phosphorus into commercial fertilizer.
- How many water companies has Forage Capital Partners backed?
- In (don't) Waste Water's database, Forage Capital Partners has backed one water company, Ostara, across two deals. Forage is an agriculture and food investor rather than a water specialist, so (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment occasional. Ostara recovers phosphorus from wastewater and recycles it into fertilizer.
- Is Forage Capital Partners the same as the Forage payments company?
- No. Forage Capital Partners is a Calgary-based agriculture and food growth-equity fund led by Jim Taylor. It is unrelated to Forage, the United States fintech that processes SNAP and EBT grocery payments and raised a $40 million round in 2026. The two simply share a name.