Novo Holdings
Novo Holdings is the investment company of Denmark's Novo Nordisk Foundation and one of the world's largest life-science investors. It invests in water only occasionally, through its Planetary Health Investments team. As of 2025 it has backed two water companies, the brine-recycler Aquafortus and the on-site disinfection firm HPNow, across two deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Novo Holdings sits on top of an unusual ownership structure: it is the investment company of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Danish philanthropic giant that controls the maker of Ozempic. That foundation ownership gives Novo Holdings a patient, decades-long horizon most venture and private-equity money cannot match. It is best known as one of the world's largest life-science investors, and water is a young, deliberately small part of the book.
Novo Holdings reaches water through its Planetary Health Investments team, the arm it created by renaming its former bioindustrial group in 2024 to back the green transition rather than human medicine. Its two tracked water bets share a theme: squeezing clean water and value out of streams everyone else treats as waste. Aquafortus, a New Zealand company, uses a non-thermal process to turn high-salinity brine, the toxic by-product of mining and oil-and-gas, into fresh water while pulling out lithium and other metals. HPNow, spun out of the Technical University of Denmark, makes hydrogen peroxide on-site from water, air and electricity so farms and factories can disinfect their own supplies without trucking in chemicals.
Novo Holdings approaches water with a science-first lens rather than a water-first one. It backs water the way a deep-tech investor would, hunting for a hard chemistry or biology edge and a market far larger than water alone. Both Aquafortus and HPNow sell into industry, energy and agriculture, not municipal utilities, and both fit the Foundation's stated aim to scale up planetary-health investing over the coming years. For a newcomer, Novo Holdings is not the place to pitch a pure water-utility idea; it is a patient, science-led backer that funds water when the underlying technology is genuinely novel.
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 Novo Holdings invest in?
- Novo Holdings is the investment company of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and one of the world's largest life-science investors, backing biotech, pharma and a broad mix of private and public assets. Through its Planetary Health Investments team it also funds the green transition, including a small, growing set of water-technology companies.
- Does Novo Holdings invest in water?
- Novo Holdings invests in water occasionally, not as a dedicated water fund. In our database it has backed two water companies across two deals: Aquafortus, which recovers fresh water and metals from brine, and HPNow, which generates hydrogen peroxide on-site to disinfect water for farms and industry.
- Who leads water investments at Novo Holdings?
- Novo Holdings runs its water and environmental bets through its Planetary Health Investments team, headed by Managing Partner Anders Spohr. The wider firm is led by Chief Executive Officer Kasim Kutay. Water sits inside the planetary-health mandate rather than a standalone water team.
- Where is Novo Holdings based?
- Novo Holdings is headquartered in Hellerup, just north of Copenhagen, Denmark, with further offices in regions including the United States and Asia. Founded in 1999, it manages the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and invests globally across life science, private equity and the green transition.
- Is Novo Holdings the same as Novo Nordisk?
- No. Novo Holdings is the investment company that holds a controlling stake in Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, on behalf of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Novo Holdings manages the foundation's wealth and makes investments, including its water bets, separately from Novo Nordisk's drug business.