Safar Partners
Safar Partners is a Cambridge, Massachusetts venture capital (VC) firm that commercialises deep technology spun out of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Rochester. Water is one slice of a broader cleantech and advanced-materials thesis, and as of 2026 the fund has backed 4 water companies across 6 deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Safar Partners exists to drag university lab science into the market. Co-founders Arunas Chesonis, the cleantech operator who built Sweetwater Energy and bankrolled environmental research at MIT, and Nader Motamedy, a career fund manager, started the firm to commercialise breakthroughs coming out of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Rochester. Water is not the headline here, it is a consequence of the chemistry.
Safar Partners backs the hard science that sits underneath water treatment, not the utilities that run it. Across the water companies (don't) Waste Water tracks, the pattern is consistent: engineered membranes, electrochemistry, and materials that rewrite the unit economics of cleaning water. Membrion is building ceramic ion-exchange membranes, Solidec makes chemicals on-site with electrochemical reactors, Gradiant works on industrial reuse and brine, and Turing wraps the plant in AI. It is the molecular and digital layer most generalist climate funds skip.
Safar Partners runs a science-heavy bench, which is what a thesis built on lab breakthroughs demands. Partner Vera Schroeder earned a chemistry PhD at MIT before she ever wrote a cheque, and the investment committee pairs that technical depth with decades of private-equity discipline from Nader Motamedy and Greg Feldman. It is a team built to pressure-test whether the science survives contact with a real factory, not just whether the deck looks good.
Safar Partners spreads its bets across robotics, AI, and life sciences as well as water, so a newcomer should read it as a deep-tech generalist that keeps finding water rather than a dedicated water fund. The open question is whether water graduates from a recurring theme into a named focus as the membrane and electrochemistry portfolio matures. For now, Safar is one of the few university-spinout funds willing to write cheques into the unglamorous chemistry of water.
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 · 4 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Safar Partners invest in?
- Safar Partners invests in deep-technology startups spun out of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Rochester, across cleantech and advanced materials, AI and robotics, and life sciences. Within that mandate it backs water companies working on membranes, electrochemistry, and treatment software, four of which (don't) Waste Water tracks across six deals.
- Is Safar Partners a water fund?
- Safar Partners is a deep-tech university-spinout fund, not a water-only fund. Water sits inside a broader cleantech and advanced-materials thesis alongside AI, robotics, and life sciences. Within that slice it has backed 4 water companies across 6 deals, according to (don't) Waste Water's data, and rates as Committed on its water scorecard.
- Who runs Safar Partners?
- Safar Partners was co-founded by Arunas Chesonis, the cleantech operator behind Sweetwater Energy, and Nader Motamedy, a former private-equity fund manager. Both serve as managing partners and sit on the investment committee, alongside partners Vera Schroeder, a chemistry PhD from MIT, Parinaz Motamedy, and Greg Feldman.
- Where is Safar Partners based?
- Safar Partners is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at One Broadway, in the heart of the MIT and Harvard innovation cluster it draws most of its companies from. The location is deliberate: the fund commercialises science coming out of those universities plus the University of Rochester.
- Is Safar Partners the same as Al Safar and Partners?
- No. Safar Partners is the Cambridge, Massachusetts deep-tech venture firm co-founded by Arunas Chesonis and Nader Motamedy. It is unrelated to Al Safar and Partners or ACE Alsafar and Partners, the similarly named Dubai law firms, which share the word Safar but have no connection to the fund.