This September, ClimateHaven hosted WaterTech Futures: Industry Challenges and What It Takes to Scale Solutions, our inaugural and oversubscribed event at New York Climate Week. With over two hundred attendees from across the water sector and the industries that depend on it, the evening underscored that these conversations are not only timely but essential. We’ve distilled the key takeaways from our discussions, capturing insights from Amazon and Xylem on emerging industry challenges and from investors at Burnt Island Ventures, Echo River Capital, Emerald Technology Ventures, and Closed Loop Partners on what it takes to scale solutions.
Water has long been an underrepresented topic in climate discussions. Yet as the impacts of climate change deepen, water is emerging as both a defining challenge and an opportunity for innovation. The twelve startups that showcased at WaterTech Futures illustrated the breadth of this opportunity, presenting technologies that span advanced treatment systems, AI-driven water management, and digital tools for flood forecasting and resilience. From mounting pressure on aging infrastructure to the growing demands of data centers, agriculture, and manufacturing, every major sector now faces the same question: how can we build water systems that are both sustainable and resilient in a resource-constrained world?
Why We Focused on Water
At ClimateHaven, we’ve seen firsthand that many of the most promising climate solutions have a water component whether through reuse, energy efficiency, or infrastructure resilience. The momentum around water is building fast, and we wanted to capture that at the global stage of Climate Week.
This event was a reflection of that shift. WaterTech Futures convened industry leaders and investors to spotlight both the urgency and opportunity in this sector exploring what innovation truly looks like when corporate scale, startup agility, and public utility missions align.
Panel 1: The Water-Energy Nexus and Emerging Opportunities
The evening opened with Will Hewes, Water Sustainability Lead at Amazon and Max Storto, Director of Innovation Strategy and Venture Capital at Xylem in conversation about the rising water demands driven by the expansion of data centers which has quickly become a central topic within the climate dialogue.
Citing recent analyses and their own data, Amazon’s Will Hewes emphasized that water use in data centers is not just an operational issue but a strategic sustainability challenge. He noted that Amazon’s facilities employ a mix of recycled water, advanced cooling systems, and real-time monitoring to improve efficiency that allow the company to be aligned with its Water Positive by 2030 goals. According to Amazon’s sustainability report, its data centers have achieved a 40% improvement in water use efficiency since 2021 and now reuse water across 24 sites globally. The discussion reflected the growing opportunity for data infrastructure to drive credible water stewardship.
Amazon and Xylem’s partnership with a local utility in Mexico City offers a glimpse into what corporate–community collaboration can achieve. Through coordinated reuse and replenishment programs, the smart water upgrades implemented through this partnership saves more than 1.3 billion liters annually in Mexico. These examples underscored a key takeaway: innovation in water is not just about technology, but about systems that necessitate water reuse, energy demand management, and regional infrastructure planning to achieve shared resilience goals.
Panel 2: Scaling Water Tech — From Pilots to Market
The second discussion, Scaling Water Tech: Capital Strategies and Market Pathways, brought together Clayton MacDougald, Investment Director of Emerald Technology Ventures, Tom Ferguson, Managing Partner of Burnt Island Ventures, and Danielle Joseph, Managing Director of Closed Loop Partners, to unpack what it takes to move water innovations from pilot projects to profitable, market-ready solutions.
Their message was clear: breakthrough technology is only half the battle. The path to commercialization in the water sector requires precision in capital strategy, go-to-market execution, and stakeholder alignment.
Investors emphasized the scale of the opportunity: a massive, aging infrastructure system in urgent need of upgrades and innovation. Unlocking that potential requires both deploying breakthrough technologies and access to real operational data, clear customer pain points, and the alignment of capital with execution. Without visibility into operational pain points and performance metrics, startups face an uphill climb in proving value and securing long-term contracts.
Connecting Pilots, Partnerships, and Pathways
Taken together, these discussions reinforced what we at ClimateHaven have believed since launching the Water Innovation Hub: that water innovation succeeds when the ecosystem connects and provides tangible opportunities to integrate innovation at scale. We believe this is possible by utilities providing pilot opportunities, corporates bring scale, investors offer strategic capital, and startups deliver the ingenuity.
Our mission through the Hub is to link pilots, partnerships, and pathways so that promising water technologies can accelerate from concept to real-world impact. Through programs like our Innovation Challenge with the Regional Water Authority, we’re translating conversations like those at Climate Week into actionable collaborations that test, validate, and deploy solutions in the field.
Looking Ahead
WaterTech Futures was a milestone in building a collaborative movement and our momentum is far from contained to a single evening. As we look ahead to 2026, we see the conversation around water innovation expanding rapidly, from data centers and industrial reuse to detection, monitoring, decentralized treatment systems, and innovative financing for water infrastructure. None of this would be possible without our incredible partners: Xylem, Elemental Impact, Closed Loop Partners, Burnt Island Ventures, Echo River Capital, Yale, and Wilson Sonsini, each advancing critical pieces of the ecosystem that make progress possible.
At ClimateHaven’s Water Innovation Hub, we’re continuing to accelerate the commercialization and deployment of water technologies through pilots, data, and capital and we invite you to join us. Whether you’re a startup, investor, utility, or research partner, help us continue the conversation and explore collaboration opportunities that drive real solutions for water and climate resilience.
All photos taken by Daniel Havlat Photo
