Sofimac Partners
Sofimac Partners is a regional French venture and private equity firm in Clermont-Ferrand that has backed local companies for over 30 years. Its water exposure is small, three early-stage companies including pipe-inspection robotics maker ACWA Robotics, made through an innovation arm that merged into UI Investissement. As of 2026, Sofimac has backed three water companies.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Sofimac Partners is one of the older names in French regional finance, a Clermont-Ferrand house that has spent more than three decades writing equity cheques to small and mid-sized companies across Auvergne and central France, from green chemistry to aeronautics to software. Water was never its headline. The handful of water bets on its record came through Sofimac Innovation, the firm's technology venture arm, not the regional buyout teams that define the group.
Sofimac's water story is really the story of that innovation arm, and where it went. In a deal announced in late 2020 and completed the following year, Sofimac Innovation merged into UI Investissement, the Lyon-based growth investor, forming a single capital-investment platform with roughly 1.75 billion euros under management. The seed and innovation funds that backed Sofimac's water companies now sit inside that larger house, so a newcomer who spots 'Sofimac' as an early backer of a water company is really looking at a team that has since moved under the UI banner.
Sofimac's water portfolio itself is three companies, all French, all early-stage. ACWA Robotics builds autonomous robots that crawl pressurized drinking-water mains and map them from the inside without shutting off supply, a direct answer to the treated water that leaks out of ageing pipes before it ever reaches a tap. Osmosun makes solar-powered desalination units, which turn seawater into drinking water, for off-grid coastal and island communities. Cosmo Tech sells simulation software that utilities and industry use to model complex networks before they spend on them.
Sofimac, read as a water play, asks for an honest verdict: water sits at the edge of a generalist regional portfolio, three companies, the last new bet in 2020, and the specialist team that made them now lives at UI Investissement. Sofimac is a window into how French regional venture funded early water hardware, more than a dedicated water investor you would track for the next deal. If you came here for ACWA's pipe robots, the people who wrote that cheque are the ones to follow.
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 · 3 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Sofimac Partners invest in?
- Sofimac Partners invests in small and mid-sized French companies, mostly across central France, in sectors from green chemistry and aeronautics to software. In water, Sofimac backed three early-stage companies, including pipe-inspection robotics firm ACWA Robotics, through its technology arm, Sofimac Innovation.
- Who runs Sofimac Partners?
- Sofimac Partners is led by co-chief executive Sébastien Boulard, with Cécile Thébault as Director of Investments, who has coordinated the firm's technology investment team since 1999, and Bruno Jas as an investment director in Clermont-Ferrand. The firm is headquartered in Clermont-Ferrand, with offices in Lyon, Limoges, Orléans and Paris.
- What water companies has Sofimac Partners backed?
- Sofimac Partners backed ACWA Robotics, whose robots map drinking-water pipes from the inside; Osmosun, which builds solar-powered desalination units; and Cosmo Tech, a simulation-software company. All three were early-stage and French, and Sofimac leads roughly a third of the rounds it joins.
- Is Sofimac Partners a water investor?
- Sofimac Partners is a generalist regional investor, not a water specialist. Water is occasional: three companies, the last new investment in 2020, made through its Sofimac Innovation arm, which has since merged into UI Investissement. (don't) Waste Water rates Sofimac Partners' water commitment Occasional.
- Is Sofimac Partners the same as Sofinnova Partners?
- No. Sofimac Partners is a regional private equity and venture firm based in Clermont-Ferrand. Sofinnova Partners is a separate, larger Paris-based life-sciences venture firm. The similar names are coincidental, and the two firms are unrelated.