Echo River Capital August 2025 Recap
- Peter Yollens
- Sep 14
- 5 min read
New Investment in Solidec
Solidec signifies our first investment into an entirely new class of transformative technology: harnessing water for climate-friendly chemicals. This is an extension of Echo River’s “decarbonizing water” efforts with the potential to generate over one gigaton of avoided greenhouse gas emissions. (That’s nine zeros worth!) Solidec aims to replace chemicals that are currently refined from fossil fuels with its green chemistry platform to generate everything from hydrogen peroxide to sustainable aviation fuel. We are super excited to support CEO Ryan DuChanois and the team to extract molecular building blocks from water and air without any fossil emissions. Solidec has the potential to avoid up to 1 gigaton of CO2e at scale.
Follow-On investment in Active Membranes
Only once in a while does a team and a technology come around that is able to transform desalination. From the initial creation of reverse osmosis 50 years ago at Ben Gurion University in Israel, just a handful of innovations have enhanced the production and efficiency since. One was recovering energy in the form of pressure for reuse. Now Active Membranes has found a way to electrify and digitize membranes and perform reverse osmosis (without the use of chemicals) leading to lower operating costs, longer membrane life, and higher freshwater recovery rates. Active Membranes has the potential to reduce total costs of seawater reverse osmosis desalination by up to two-thirds. We are incredibly proud of CEO Arian Edalat and the team based in Southern California and their velocity of taking a lab-based application to market in just a year. Industry News: Chile has re-invented its water cycle with desalination and reuse
PORTFOLIO UPDATES
Active Membranes is the only company out of 93 applicants to the $119 million XPrize for desalination to be accepted into both Track A for Systems and to Track B for Material Science. Listen to CEO Arian Edalat on the Don’t Waste Water podcast with Antoine Walter.
Aerflo for Hydro Flask® transforms your HydroFlask® Standard Mouth bottle into a soda maker. Order yours today and take carbonation with you wherever you go.
CREW CARBON’s senior technical advisors published a new paper in Nature Water on how the application of limestone sequesters CO2.
Irrigreen released its 3rd generation irrigation sprinkler for lawns, which is proven to reduce applied water by 50%. Get a quote instantly online at Irrigreen. I’ve just ordered mine because my sprinkler valves are kaput and, did you know, Irrigreen doesn’t use any valves for its lawn sprinkler heads. So that’s simple.
Verdi announced the 4th version of its irrigation block controller that includes seamless compatibility with most leading brands of flow meters.
Watergenics attended the Mine Water Solutions conference in Vancouver. Key takeaway was that the path to responsible mining combines water stewardship with next-gen KPIs that look holistically at both water quality and quantity throughout the entire lifecycle of the mine.
Waterplan attended the Alliance for Water Stewardship global summit in Edinburgh, where there was a clear message: water stewardship must move from fragmented programs to integrated strategy. If you’d like to connect with Waterplan’s team about the takeaways or next steps, reach out to Luisina Busso.
Beer brewed from air? Yes, really! Bangalore’s beer scene just got a sustainable twist! Uravu Labs, in collaboration with The Bier Library, has crafted the world’s first beer brewed with water FromAir®—turning humidity into pure, drinkable water. With global water demand set to outstrip supply by 40% in five years, this innovation saves six glasses of groundwater per pint, proving that sustainability isn’t a compromise—it’s an upgrade!
New Podcast Webpage
Peter has been a guest on about six podcasts, and they are assembled for easy access on Echo River’s website here: https://www.echorivercap.com/podcasts. Check out Peter’s latest appearance on The Scenarioist deeptech Podcast. Check out our discussion here or at Echo River’s podcast page. Peter’s Speaking Appearances
Yale Innovation Summit on the Climate-Water-Health Nexus. This panel on May 28 kicked off a new effort of ClimateHaven, a Yale-related accelerator focused on climate and water startups. With Peter as an advisory board member, ClimateHaven is launching a new incubator called the Water Hub in partnership with the Regional Water Authority of Connecticut. Peter also judged the Climate Tech track startups at the Summit.
American Water Works Association Annual Conference in June. Cristina Ahmadpour of Isle Utilities hosted the Innovation Pavilion at the ACE conference in Denver, where Cristina invited Peter to speak on the Investor Panel alongside Christine Boyle from Burnt Island Ventures and Clayton MacDougald of Emerald Technology Ventures. While there, Peter met with colleagues, collaborators, portfolio company founders and other startup founders. Peter is proud of the collaborative relationships Echo River has with other investors in the watertech ecosystem for deal flow and diligence.
(L to R: Cristina Ahmadpour, Christine Boyle, Peter Yolles, and Clayton MacDougald)
Catch Peter at one of the following upcoming New York Climate Week events:
XPrize Qualification Announcement (Monday September 22)
ClimateHaven Water Hub (Monday September 22)
Welcome, Echo River Summer Associates
We were delighted to have Ojaswi and Clelia to our team for the summer. Ojaswi is an MBA candidate at the Yale School of Management, and previously worked at Goldman Sachs on their technology integrations. Clelia is a rising sophomore at Yale double majoring in electrical engineering and economics. She is leading the 2024 update to Echo River’s impact report. She is also coordinating a scan of water efficiency technologies for data center cooling, which is likely to require the largest incremental increase in water demand through 2050. Thanks for all your help!
INDUSTRY UPDATES
Investing in early-stage companies in the US is tax-advantaged through the Qualified Small Business Stock exemption, which reduces federal tax obligations from capital gains made from investing in startups. With passage of the new 2025 federal reconciliation package, investors are provided additional benefits
Capital gains exclusion raised from $10M to $15M
Qualified company size lifted from $50M to $75M
Tax benefit phase-in now starts at year 3 (50%), rather than year 5 (100%)
These reforms represent substantial improvements in after-tax returns for early-stage investors.
Portfolio Hiring
With EV and Battery subsidies scheduled to end December 31st, I replaced 18 panels that produced 180w with new 420w panels, thereby increasing the production capacity from 2.5 kW to 8.0 kW. We also added stationary battery storage with SigEnergy’s 5-in-1 home energy system. What makes Sigenergy unique is its DC-based bidirectional EV charging, which can increase household backup capacity, enable Virtual Power Plant participation, and increase charging speeds to 25 kW. If you’re thinking about adding solar + battery storage with the 30% tax incentive, don’t wait. Installers are booking out months ahead. And while you’re at it, might as well get an induction cooktop and heat pumps for your water and HVAC system. With a fully electric household, you can turn off the fossil gas permanently.
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