Silicon Valley Wants to Solve Our Water Problems

Gary Kremen—the founder of Match[-dot-]com, former owner of Sex[-dot-]com, and serial investor—is into water. The entrepreneur started investing in water tech startups a few years ago. Today he’s an elected member of Silicon Valley’s water district, an agency that manages water and flood control for 2 million people.

Earlier this year, he helped craft a proposal to build a tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that could improve drinking water reliability for cities from San Jose to San Diego. Following several years of investing in energy and solar startups, Kremen became attracted to water problems, he says, because it’s an issue that’s yet to be solved.

“Water is so, so, so, so hard,” he says. “We need to focus on the hard things.”

A small fraction of venture capital dollars currently goes into tech to manage or clean water. Analysis from research company Cleantech Group finds that total dollars and deal volume for water tech startups in 2016 were down 70 percent and 65 percent, respectively, from a peak in 2013. Many water investments are now coming from family offices, corporate investors, and philanthropy.

But despite the investing challenges, there’s still healthy interest from entrepreneurs, who are […]

Full article: Silicon Valley Wants to Solve Our Water Problems