Metagrove Ventures
Metagrove Ventures is a pre-seed and seed venture fund backing founders across the US, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. A generalist industry investor rather than a water specialist, it also trades as MGV Capital as of 2026, and in the Leviathan database its water exposure is a single tracked holding: Australian pipe-inspection startup VAPAR, backed across two early rounds.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Metagrove Ventures is, first and foremost, not a water fund, and that is the thing a newcomer to the sector should hold onto. It is a pre-seed and seed generalist that backs founders building across the US, Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, under a banner it calls Building the Future of Industry, which in practice means logistics, supply chain, agtech, space, clean energy, robotics and the rest of the deep-industrial stack. Founder and Managing Partner Barry Winata built it as a bridge between the Asia-Pacific region and Silicon Valley, and water is simply one of the many industries that bridge happens to cross.
Metagrove Ventures reaches water through a single company rather than a thesis. The Leviathan database tracks one water holding for the fund, the Sydney startup VAPAR, whose software reads in-pipe CCTV footage with machine learning and tells a utility which sewer and stormwater pipes are actually failing, so crews dig where the problem is instead of guessing. Metagrove backed it at seed and again at Series A, a round that also drew the water-only Dutch fund PureTerra Ventures, Autodesk and Veolia, which is about as serious a water syndicate as an Australian pipe-inspection company could line up.
For someone new to water investing, Metagrove Ventures is a useful reminder that water rarely arrives wearing a water label. It turns up inside a generalist industry portfolio long before it reaches a dedicated water fund, here as a piece of unglamorous infrastructure software that helps cities spend their pipe-repair budgets where the pipes are genuinely broken. Whether Metagrove, which as of 2026 also trades under the name MGV Capital, backs more water names will follow from where its industry mandate next touches water, not from any water remit of its own, and on the current evidence (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional.
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 Metagrove Ventures invest in?
- Metagrove Ventures invests at pre-seed and seed stage across industrial sectors like logistics, supply chain, agtech, clean energy and robotics, backing founders in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. It is a generalist, not a water fund; the Leviathan database tracks a single water holding, pipe-inspection startup VAPAR.
- Who runs Metagrove Ventures?
- Metagrove Ventures was founded and is led by Managing Partner Barry Winata, who built the fund as a bridge between the Asia-Pacific region and Silicon Valley. Its investment team includes General Partner Henry Sheng and Venture Partner Gabriel Guedes, supported by a wider network of operator-mentors and advisors across Australia and the US.
- Is Metagrove Ventures a water investor?
- Metagrove Ventures is a generalist pre-seed and seed investor, not a water specialist. Water reaches its portfolio through one tracked company, Australian startup VAPAR, whose AI reads pipe-inspection footage for utilities. (don't) Waste Water rates Metagrove's water commitment Occasional, reflecting that single holding backed across two early rounds.
- Where is Metagrove Ventures based?
- Metagrove Ventures is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with a strong presence in Sydney, Australia, reflecting a fund built to connect Asia-Pacific founders with Silicon Valley capital. It invests across the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, rather than from a single home market.
- What is the difference between Metagrove Ventures and MGV Capital?
- Metagrove Ventures and MGV Capital are the same firm. The fund founded by Barry Winata now also presents itself as MGV Capital across its website and LinkedIn, while keeping the metagrove.vc domain. (don't) Waste Water lists it as Metagrove Ventures, the name under which its tracked water investment was recorded.