Sign In
SHARE
Email Confirmation
Jun 13 2008
11:15AM
EDT
The Next Big Thing: Water
Blaise Zerega is thirsty: Last week, Jim Labe at Triplepoint Capital laughed that he feels a bit like the character in the The Graduate advising Dustin Hoffman on his future. "Only instead of plastics, water is the future," he told me."And in the next year there are going to be more and more investments in water." He's a prescient guy-- the current issue of BusinessWeek features T.Boone Pickens proclaiming that water will be the 21st century's oil.
Triplepoint is not a typical venture shop. Instead of providing capital in exchange for equity, it makes loans, often with warrants attached. For instance, the firm recently loaned $100 million to Facebook. Other clients have included the likes of Cisco, Sprint, and YouTube.
That water is the next big thing is a something I've been hearing a lot from VCs lately.The lack of clean drinking water kills some 6,000 people a day, most of them children, according to the World Health Organization. The June issue of Portfolio contains a story about the LifeStraw, an inexpensive device being used to address the problem.
Potable water is a textbook example of an opportunity for technology investors. There's a ready market, ever increasing demand, and plenty room for improvement throughout the entire supply chain.
Labe said he's impressed by companies like Miox, which are entering the water market at the municipal suplplier level by developing more cost-effective and efficient purification processes without the byproducts typically associated with traditional methods. Other venture-backed companies in this category include Pionetics, 212 Resources, and Purfresh.
Labe predicted that the better companies in the companies would go public in 2009-2010, and that he wouldn't be surprised to see 10-20-and even 30 x venture capitals returns "bubbling to the surface, no pun intended." Such Texas-sized predictions would ordinarily give pause, but as the saying goes: Water water everywhere, but not a drop to spare."
Triplepoint is not a typical venture shop. Instead of providing capital in exchange for equity, it makes loans, often with warrants attached. For instance, the firm recently loaned $100 million to Facebook. Other clients have included the likes of Cisco, Sprint, and YouTube.
That water is the next big thing is a something I've been hearing a lot from VCs lately.The lack of clean drinking water kills some 6,000 people a day, most of them children, according to the World Health Organization. The June issue of Portfolio contains a story about the LifeStraw, an inexpensive device being used to address the problem.
Potable water is a textbook example of an opportunity for technology investors. There's a ready market, ever increasing demand, and plenty room for improvement throughout the entire supply chain.
Labe said he's impressed by companies like Miox, which are entering the water market at the municipal suplplier level by developing more cost-effective and efficient purification processes without the byproducts typically associated with traditional methods. Other venture-backed companies in this category include Pionetics, 212 Resources, and Purfresh.
Labe predicted that the better companies in the companies would go public in 2009-2010, and that he wouldn't be surprised to see 10-20-and even 30 x venture capitals returns "bubbling to the surface, no pun intended." Such Texas-sized predictions would ordinarily give pause, but as the saying goes: Water water everywhere, but not a drop to spare."
See more in
Loading...
Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.
Create Your Public Profile
Recent Blog Posts
- First Bytes: SEC Eyes Tweets, Waiting on a Verizon iPhone
- Apr 27 2009 9:10AM EDT
- Last Bytes: A New MySpaceFace, Technological Necessities
- Apr 24 2009 5:22PM EDT
- What the One Billionth Downloader Won
- Apr 24 2009 2:37PM EDT
- The End of Innocence at Apple
- Apr 24 2009 11:25AM EDT
- First Bytes: Social Videos, 1 Billion Apps, Mt. Everest Calls
- Apr 24 2009 10:23AM EDT
- Last Bytes: Microsoft and Amazon, Two Tales of the Economy
- Apr 23 2009 5:40PM EDT
- Dell's Plastic Surgery
- Apr 23 2009 3:12PM EDT
- Why High Tech Needs the Wall Street Quants
- Apr 23 2009 11:20AM EDT
- First Bytes: New Blood at MySpace, Steve Jobs Testimony
- Apr 23 2009 9:05AM EDT
- Last Bytes: Apple Profit Soars; eBay Profit Falls
- Apr 22 2009 5:04PM EDT
- Earth Day Special: Gadgets to Green Your Lifestyle
- Apr 22 2009 1:52PM EDT
- First Bytes: Cyberspies and Belgian Bots
- Apr 22 2009 9:55AM EDT
- Last Bytes: Is Texting Passé? Not Yet.
- Apr 21 2009 5:52PM EDT
- Happy 20th Birthday, Game Boy
- Apr 21 2009 4:11PM EDT
- Gaming Geeks (and Curt Schilling) Unite!
- Apr 21 2009 12:43PM EDT
Archive
Jul
2009
Categories
Links
- Kevin Maney's site
- TechCrunch
- GigaOM
- Engadget
- USA TODAY Tech
- Romenesko
- BuzzTracker Tech
- Roger McGuinn's Folk Den
- Maney's band on MySpace
- Spiedies, mmmm
- Somewhat Frank's tech conference list
- Marc Andreessen
- Mark Cuban's blog
- Tom Foremski
- Fred Wilson
- Pandora
- SciTech Daily
- Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
- Steven Johnson
- The Long Tail
- paidContent
- John Battelle's SearchBlog
