Simon Olivier
Head of the Cycle H2O Water Fund (Senior Partner, Cycle Capital) at Cycle H2O
Simon Olivier runs Cycle H2O, a C$30M Quebec water venture fund, applying a 30-year energy-investing career to early-stage water tech.
Compiled by Antoine Walter - from insight gathered on and off his (don't) Waste Water microphone!
Simon Olivier is the head of Cycle H2O, a C$30-million Quebec venture fund backing early-stage water technology, co-managed by Cycle Capital and H2O Innovation. A 30-year energy executive who helped build GE's renewable-energy business, he now bets water is following the same arc, and in 2025 wrote its first three cheques into Quebec startups. (As of June 2026.)
Simon Olivier is an engineer by training (Polytechnique Montreal) who took a long route into water through finance and energy. He spent the better part of two decades at General Electric, starting in aircraft financing at GE Capital, then running power-generation regions, building GE's renewable-energy business in North America back when, as he tells it, 'our only friends were some tree huggers,' and finally leading mergers and acquisitions at GE Ventures. A stint as Agropur's strategy chief and a board seat at the water nonprofit AquaAction brought him to the edge of the water world; in 2020 he jumped in for good as head of Cycle H2O.
What Simon brings to water is a pattern he has watched play out once already. The difference he keeps coming back to is that water has no substitute: where energy could swap coal for wind or solar, water has no Plan B molecule, which he argues makes the stakes higher and the eventual prize bigger. He treats water as an undervalued, finite resource whose price can only rise, and bets that the companies solving for it can, if they scale in four or five years rather than ten, beat any other asset class.
Cycle H2O is built to de-risk that bet. The C$30-million fund writes first cheques of C$0.5 to 3 million and aims for at least twelve companies, and its edge is structural: three partners, Cycle Capital for capital and track record, H2O Innovation for market intelligence across some 75 countries, and Simon's own team as a 'copilot investor.' He maps a likely exit before cutting a cheque, a discipline he calls the 'Goldilocks valuation,' specifically to avoid the down rounds that punish water founders elsewhere.
In its first year deploying, Cycle H2O backed three Quebec startups, BioAlert Solutions (on-site Legionella detection), RegenEAU (greywater heat recovery) and Ecofilter Tek (regenerable PFAS-removal resins), and Simon took a board seat at each, plus an observer seat at Aqua Membranes. He is one of a small but growing cohort of specialist water funds, alongside Burnt Island Ventures, PureTerra and Emerald, that he believes are finally emerging now that water is deep enough to reward focus. I unpacked the full thesis in the episode breakdown, and the deal data lives in my Leviathan database.
“The biggest difference between the energy sector and the water sector is the fact that in the water sector, there's no substitute. ... The stakes are higher, but the outcomes are even bigger.”
If water really is where energy was 25 years ago, Simon Olivier is betting his second act that the specialists writing the first cheques now will look prescient later.
On (don’t) Waste Water
The one time Simon Olivier joined the show:
The company
Frequently asked
- Who is Simon Olivier?
- Simon Olivier is the head of Cycle H2O, a C$30-million Quebec water venture fund, and a senior partner at Cycle Capital. A Polytechnique-trained engineer with an MBA, he spent roughly 19 years at General Electric across finance, energy and M&A before moving into water-technology investing.
- What is the Cycle H2O fund?
- Cycle H2O is a C$30-million early-stage water-technology venture fund led by Simon Olivier and co-managed by Cycle Capital and H2O Innovation. It writes first cheques of C$0.5 to 3 million, targets at least twelve companies, and held its initial close in June 2024, anchored by Investissement Quebec.
- Which companies has Cycle H2O invested in?
- In 2025 Cycle H2O made its first three disclosed investments, all Quebec startups: BioAlert Solutions (on-site Legionella detection), RegenEAU (greywater heat recovery) and Ecofilter Tek (regenerable PFAS-removal resins). Simon Olivier took a board seat at each, plus a board-observer seat at Aqua Membranes.
- What is Simon Olivier's background?
- Simon Olivier is an engineer (Polytechnique Montreal) with an MBA (McGill). He spent roughly 19 years at General Electric, across GE Capital, GE Energy and Power, and GE Ventures, where he led M&A, then served as Agropur's strategy chief, before heading the Cycle H2O water fund from 2020.
- How does Cycle H2O de-risk its water investments?
- Cycle H2O uses a three-partner structure: Cycle Capital for capital and track record, H2O Innovation for market intelligence and due diligence, and the fund team as a 'copilot.' Simon Olivier also maps a likely exit before investing, a discipline he calls the 'Goldilocks valuation,' to avoid dilutive down rounds.