Water Tech with Burnt Island Ventures

Tom Ferguson is founder and managing partner at Burnt Island Ventures, which is an early-stage venture capital fund focused on technologies related to water. Burnt Island's website notes that climate change is water change. And that water is the medium through which we will feel the effects of a warming earth.

Tom has been working in water for over a decade, first at the sustainability consultancy, ERM, then at Imagine H2O, a non-profit startup accelerator for water startups. He’s been at Burnt Island Ventures since 2020. 

Tom and Cody have an in-depth conversation about the categories in the water tech space, the types of startups that are emerging, how incumbents are navigating the rapidly changing environment in which they find themselves, and the types of investments he targets with this firm. There are whole episodes to be recorded in each of Burnt Island Ventures' focus areas, but for now we appreciate learning about water from Tom’s perspective.

In this episode, we cover: 

• Importance of water in the context of climate change
• Changing global water systems and the need for infrastructure upgrades
• Burnt Island's approach to different water categories 
• The role of software and hardware in water tech solutions
• Corporate water pledges 
• The importance of embracing entrepreneurial innovation while balancing production success
• Burnt Island's portfolio breakdown 
• The need for improved storytelling and lobbying efforts in the water industry
• First-of-a-kind projects in the water space
• Tom's climate journey and how he ended up at Burnt Island
• The investment focus and criteria of Burnt Island Ventures 
• The launch of the podcast "The Fundamental Molecule" by Burnt Island Ventures

Episode recorded on Dec 7, 2023 (Published on Jan 9, 2024)

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant