water-conservation
(10)
The 30-Centimeter Pipe That Made Rice Visible
Mitti Labs did not invent a better way to irrigate rice. It built the field operation, measurement system and market that could make an old idea travel across thousands of tiny farms.
The Denver Guy Who Watched Sprinklers Run in the Rain - And Built a $22M Water Company
A dog walk during a Denver rainstorm turned into a decade-long bet: that the smartest thing a sprinkler can do is know when to stay off. 150 billion gallons later, Rain Bird bought the whole thing.
The Cal Poly Drought Project That Turned Your Water Meter Into a Snitch
Three Cal Poly engineers built a clip-on sensor that reads the meter you already have. It cut the average home's water use 14% - and turned drought guilt into a phone notification.
Hydraloop
Hydraloop is a Dutch water technology company that makes compact, in-home and in-building water recycling systems. Its certified, chemical-free devices collect and clean up to 85% of a household's water - from showers, baths, washing machines and air-conditioning condensation - and return it for toilet flushing, laundry, garden irrigation and pool top-up, cutting fresh water use and sewage output by up to 45%. Founded in 2015 by Arthur Valkieser and Sabine Stuiver, the company won CES 2020's 'Best of the Best' award and a 2022 UN WIPO Global Award, and sells decentralized greywater systems to homeowners, developers and the hospitality sector worldwide.
Arable
Arable is a San Francisco-based agricultural technology company that builds solar-powered, in-field IoT sensors and a cloud analytics platform to give growers real-time crop intelligence. Its flagship Arable Mark device measures more than 40 weather, plant, soil and irrigation metrics from above the crop canopy, and machine-learning models turn that data into decisions on irrigation, crop stress and yield. Deployed across roughly 19 countries, six continents and more than 20 crop types, Arable serves customers from Driscoll's and Treasury Wine Estates to Valley Irrigation.
Aro Homes
Aro Homes is a Silicon Valley home-building company that designs and delivers precision-engineered, net-zero single-family homes for established neighborhoods. By combining a repeatable off-site/on-site construction system with architecture from Olson Kundig, Aro aims to cut the typical 18-month build down to roughly 90 days while producing homes that generate more energy than they use, cut water consumption by up to 45%, and save an estimated 11.2 tons of CO2 per home each year. The company launched publicly in 2022 with a $21M Series A and treats housing as a repeatable product rather than a series of one-off custom builds.
Irrigreen
Irrigreen makes a digital, robotic sprinkler system that uses inkjet-printer-inspired technology to paint water onto a lawn with near-pixel precision. Custom zone shapes, weather-aware AI scheduling, and a single rotating head that replaces a half-dozen old-school sprays let homeowners cut outdoor water use by roughly 50% while keeping the grass green.
Moleaer Inc.
Moleaer is a California-based cleantech company that pioneered the industrial-scale production of nanobubbles - gas bubbles roughly 2,500 times smaller than a grain of salt. Its patented nanobubble generators inject oxygen and other gases into water with extreme efficiency, helping farms, fish operations, wastewater plants, lakes and industrial sites use less water, fewer chemicals and less energy. Founded in 2016 and led by CEO Nick Dyner, Moleaer has deployed thousands of systems across more than 55 countries and raised about $61 million through a 2022 Series C led by Apollo funds, followed by a 2025 global partnership and strategic investment from water-tech giant Xylem.
Infinite Cooling
Infinite Cooling is an MIT-spinout climate-tech company that helps the world's most water-intensive industries cut water loss and run cooling towers smarter. Its patented WaterPanel technology uses electric fields to recapture purified water escaping as plume from cooling towers, while its TowerPulse platform layers AI-driven analytics and real-time monitoring on top of existing cooling systems. Customers include power plants, data centers, refineries and manufacturers across the U.S. and internationally, including a flagship deployment with EDF, the world's largest nuclear operator.
Verdi
Verdi is a Vancouver-based agtech company building affordable, retrofit-ready irrigation automation systems for orchards, vineyards, and specialty crop farms. Founded in 2020 by UBC Engineering Physics graduates Arthur Chen and Roman Kozak, the company makes wireless IoT controllers and soil moisture sensors that install in minutes on existing irrigation infrastructure. Its AI-powered platform gives farmers real-time monitoring, leak detection, variable rate irrigation, and fertigation control from a mobile app - delivering documented results of up to 70% water savings, 90% labor reduction, and 10-20% yield increases. Backed by $9.5M total funding including a $6.5M CAD seed round in May 2025, Verdi counts E&J Gallo, Arterra Wines, and UC Davis among its customers, with 16,000+ acres automated across North America.