Motley Fool Ventures
Motley Fool Ventures is an Alexandria, Virginia venture-capital fund and the sister company of investment-media firm The Motley Fool. It backs early-stage, technology-driven startups across many sectors, with a single water bet: KETOS, a drinking-water-quality monitoring company. As of 2026 it has backed one water company across two deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Motley Fool Ventures is the venture arm of The Motley Fool, the investment-media company David and Tom Gardner started in 1993. Launched as a sister fund in 2018, it raises from the Fool's own community of everyday investors (the limited partners, or LPs, who supply a fund's capital) and backs early-stage, technology-driven startups. It is a generalist fund, not a water specialist, which is the single most useful thing to know before reading its water record.
Motley Fool Ventures hunts for Series A companies, the first big institutional funding round, that use software to build an edge in large markets, and it says plainly that it favours diverse founding teams. Water surfaces exactly once in that portfolio: KETOS, a drinking-water-quality monitoring company founded by Meena Sankaran, which marries hardware sensors to cloud analytics so utilities and industrial users can watch their water in real time. It fits the house pattern cleanly, a technical, female-founded company selling intelligence rather than infrastructure.
Across its water activity Motley Fool Ventures has backed one water company, KETOS, across two deals at the Series B stage, which is why (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment a One-Off. For a newcomer the read is simple: this is a brand-powered generalist fund that placed a single, thesis-consistent bet on water intelligence, not a firm building a water practice. Whether a second water company ever follows will say more than the first one did.
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 Motley Fool Ventures invest in?
- Motley Fool Ventures is a generalist early-stage venture fund, the sister company of The Motley Fool. It backs Series A, technology-driven startups, software and tech-enabled businesses, across sectors such as fintech, healthcare and consumer, and states a preference for diverse founding teams. Water is a small part of that mandate.
- Does Motley Fool Ventures invest in water?
- Motley Fool Ventures has made one water investment: KETOS, a company that monitors drinking-water quality by pairing hardware sensors with cloud analytics. It has backed KETOS across two deals at the Series B stage. Because that is its only water company, (don't) Waste Water rates the fund's water commitment a One-Off.
- Who runs Motley Fool Ventures?
- Motley Fool Ventures is led by Managing Partner Brendan Mathews, a former Motley Fool investment analyst who runs sourcing, diligence and portfolio work. The senior team includes Partners Kristine Harjes and Rob Runett, plus Venture Partners John Keeling and Lawrence Greenberg, both longtime Motley Fool executives.
- Is Motley Fool Ventures the same as The Motley Fool?
- No. The Motley Fool is the investment-media and stock-recommendation business founded in 1993. Motley Fool Ventures is its separate venture-capital fund, launched in 2018, that invests in private startups and makes its own decisions. They share a brand and a community of investors, but they are different businesses.
- Where is Motley Fool Ventures based?
- Motley Fool Ventures is based in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C. area, alongside its parent The Motley Fool. It invests in early-stage companies across the United States, including its single water-technology holding, KETOS, which is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.