Maroon Venture Partners Fund
Maroon Venture Partners Fund is a UMass Amherst-linked venture fund based in Amherst, Massachusetts. It backs early-stage companies founded by the university's faculty, students and alumni, and its one water bet is Aclarity, a UMass lab spinout that destroys PFAS forever chemicals. As of 2026, (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment One-Off.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Maroon Venture Partners Fund is the rare venture fund that hands its profits to a university. Set up in 2017 with backing from alumnus Paul Manning, Maroon writes the first outside cheques into companies coming out of UMass Amherst, and its investment committee works for free: the carried interest, the cut of profits a fund's managers normally keep, is donated back to UMass. It reads less like a financial firm than a way for the university's alumni to recycle returns into the next generation of campus ventures.
Maroon is a generalist, not a water fund. It follows UMass innovation wherever it points, from printed optics to allergen-friendly food, and that is precisely how water turned up in the portfolio. Water reaches Maroon through the lab, not through a thesis. Its one tracked water company, Aclarity, started as research on a UMass bench years before it became a company anyone could invest in.
Aclarity destroys PFAS, the 'forever chemicals' that refuse to break down in water, using an electrochemical cell developed by professor David Reckhow and his graduate student Julie Bliss Mullen at UMass Amherst. Maroon backed its early rounds alongside the water-focused fund Burnt Island Ventures and the deep-tech investor DCVC, exactly the kind of company a campus fund is built to catch first. (don't) Waste Water rates Maroon's water commitment One-Off, one company across two early-stage deals rather than a standing water strategy.
Maroon, for a water founder, is not a fund to pitch a water startup cold. It is a useful reminder of where deep-tech water companies are actually born: inside university labs, years before a water-specialist investor ever hears the name. Its next water bet, if it comes, will almost certainly walk out of a UMass building first.
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 Maroon Venture Partners Fund invest in?
- Maroon Venture Partners Fund invests in early-stage companies tied to UMass Amherst, startups founded by the university's faculty, students and alumni across fields like optics, medical devices, food and clean technology. It often provides a venture's first outside equity. Its one tracked water company is Aclarity, a PFAS-destruction spinout from a UMass lab.
- Who runs Maroon Venture Partners Fund?
- Maroon Venture Partners Fund is run by a volunteer investment committee overseen by Maroon Venture Partners, LLC. Charlie Johnson, a clinical professor at UMass Amherst's Isenberg School and a former Boston lawyer, is managing director and handles day-to-day operations and closing deals. Committee members donate the pay a conventional fund would keep to UMass Amherst.
- Is Maroon Venture Partners a water investor?
- Maroon Venture Partners is not a dedicated water investor. It is a generalist fund backing UMass Amherst innovation, and its single tracked water company is Aclarity, an electrochemical PFAS-destruction spinout from a campus lab. (don't) Waste Water rates Maroon's water commitment One-Off as of 2026, reflecting one company across two early-stage deals.
- Where is Maroon Venture Partners Fund based?
- Maroon Venture Partners Fund is based in Amherst, Massachusetts, at the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship on the UMass Amherst campus. Launched in 2017 with backing from alumnus Paul Manning, it invests only in early-stage companies connected to the university, often writing their first outside equity cheque.
- Is Maroon Venture Partners the same as Maroon Invest Global?
- No. Maroon Venture Partners Fund is a UMass Amherst-linked venture fund based in Amherst, Massachusetts. Maroon Invest Global is a separate firm focused on health and climate investments in emerging markets. The two share a name but no common fund, team or mandate, and should not be confused.