Starquest (CCR-F)
Starquest (CCR-F) is the Climate Change Resilience Fund, a French venture capital fund that Paris-based Starquest Capital manages for state reinsurer CCR to back startups preventing natural disasters. It targets 100 million euros, and its water bets cover flood forecasting and leak detection. As of June 2026 it has backed 2 water companies, rated Committed by (don't) Waste Water.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Starquest (CCR-F) answers a question most water funds never think to ask: what if the people who pay for floods got to pick the startups trying to stop them? The Climate Change Resilience Fund is run by Starquest for CCR, France's state-backed reinsurer, the body that ultimately foots the bill when a river bursts its banks or a drought cracks the foundations. Rather than only price that risk, CCR put real money behind preventing it.
Starquest Capital itself is the older story here. Founded in 2008 and AMF-certified in 2014, the Paris firm built a greentech track record under what it calls its PROTECT thesis: backing companies that shield society from the downside of progress, whether that is warming, resource overuse or digital risk. Now a subsidiary of the Montefiore group, Starquest won the CCR mandate on the strength of that fifteen-year record, and CCR-F is the vehicle where its climate-adaptation bets, water very much included, now sit.
Inside CCR-F, Starquest's water names read like a catalogue of what a reinsurer lies awake worrying about. Hydroclimat, the fund's first investment, models floods, storms and heat street by street out to the year 2100; Leakmited points machine learning at the buried pipes a utility cannot see, catching leaks before a water main fails. Both are early bets, Seed and Series A, the first institutional cheque rather than the growth round, and both sit squarely in disaster prevention rather than treatment or supply.
Starquest (CCR-F) is built to keep buying. The fund targets 100 million euros and aims to take around fifteen stakes of 500,000 to 5 million euros each over five years, and it was still writing cheques into 2026. For a French founder working on flood, drought or water-network resilience, that makes Starquest one of the rare investors whose mandate is literally adaptation, with a patient, insurance-backed balance sheet behind it. As of June 2026 (don't) Waste Water counts 2 water companies in the portfolio across 2 deals.
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 · 2 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Starquest's CCR-F fund invest in?
- Starquest's Climate Change Resilience Fund (CCR-F) backs startups that prevent natural disasters and help society adapt to climate change, from flood and drought forecasting to leak detection in water networks. As of June 2026 Starquest has made 2 water investments through the fund, both at Seed and Series A stage.
- What is the difference between Starquest, CCR and CCR-F?
- Starquest Capital is the Paris venture firm that actually makes the investments. CCR, France's public reinsurer Caisse Centrale de Reassurance, is the institution that backs and lends its name to the fund. CCR-F, the Climate Change Resilience Fund, is the vehicle itself, which Starquest manages on CCR's behalf.
- Who runs Starquest?
- Starquest Capital is led by founding partner and CEO Arnaud Delattre, alongside co-founder and managing director Emmanuel Gaude. Partner Harold Dumeurger plus investment directors Quentin Simon and Chloe Cohen-Aknine handle deals across a team of roughly 25 people. Starquest manages CCR-F under its AMF asset-management licence.
- What stage and check size does the CCR-F fund invest at?
- Starquest's CCR-F fund invests across maturity stages, in practice early rounds from Seed to Series A, writing cheques of roughly 500,000 to 5 million euros. The fund aims to back about fifteen companies in total, and across its 2 water deals so far Starquest has joined rounds rather than led them.
- Where is Starquest based?
- Starquest is based in Paris, France, and has been investing since 2008. The firm is AMF-regulated and a subsidiary of the Montefiore group. Its CCR-F fund focuses on French and European companies building climate-resilience and natural-disaster-prevention technology, from water and flood risk to drought.