Echo River July 2023 Update

Updated: Aug 8, 2023

In this issue:

New Blog: In a hotter world, cold water is the ultimate luxury.
Echo River Capital Updates
Water Tech Industry News
Indigenous Wisdom: Making Space for Traditional Ecological Knowledge

New Blog: In a hotter world, cold water is the ultimate luxury (or necessity)

OK, you’ve all heard that July was the hottest month on Earth ever with average air temperature at 62.5° F and the average global ocean temperature at 70° F. (Source). People in Florida are sweating but can’t find relief in the oceans there. Florida coastal waters are like a hot tub at 101° F and scientists are rushing to create coral zoos for safekeeping.

While corals are bleaching, whales are beaching, and algae is blooming, some of us are paying gobs of money to chill out in cold plunges. The Renu Cold Stoic plunge bath retails for $9699. Wim Hoff, a guru of the ice bath and the cold swim, charges $3000 to swim in ice cold mountain waters in Poland. SwimTrek and other operators offer swim tours for open-water swimmers in the Lake District of the UK, among other cold water locales. “Huberman Husbands,” as devotees of Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcast sometimes are known, can make do with one to three minute cold showers, we are told, to manage our dopamine baseline. For those in Austin, TX, a selection of public natural pools fed by groundwater exist to chill off. These might be easier to access than public pools in other urban areas like in the Bronx, New York, where there is just one public pool for every 175,000 people.

All these stories suggest that human access to cold water is becoming, if not exclusive, then certainly more rare or even scarce. [ MORE ]

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ERC Portfolio Updates

Peter is featured on the podcast Water We Talking About hosted by Adam Tank and Jim Lauria, sponsored by Water Online.
Jobs at Echo River’s portfolio companies are now easily searched at this new portfolio page: https://www.echorivercap.com/jobs
These portfolio companies are raising their next rounds. Click on “Get Introduced” from the Portfolio page or email peter@echorivercap.com.

– Verdi is climate-proofing agriculture.

– Swan Systems optimizes irrigation scheduling for every crop, everywhere.

– Kairospace treats water with physics, not chemicals. Watch their Imagine H2O Demo Day presentation at minute 20:00 in this YouTube video.

– CityTaps increases drinking water access in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Portfolio Companies in the News

Varuna has launched at-home water filters using reverse osmosis that can remove harmful PFAS and biopharmaceuticals. 45% of water samples nationwide tested positive for these ‘forever chemicals.’ Keep your family safe with this innovative solution.
SWAN produced new videos highlighting their advanced irrigation scheduling software. Check out their user testimonials here and here. This SWAN demo video takes a deeper dive into the product for any agricultural grower anywhere, with a focus on California’s Central Valley and the lower Colorado River Basin including Imperial Valley.

Indigenous Wisdom:

Making Space for Traditional Ecological Knowledge

The fog above Tomales Bay was just lifting as our group descended the path towards the historic shoreline home of the Felix family. A family of badgers poked their heads out of the grasses to watch us. The grandmother of our guide, Theresa Harlan, grew up on this property, hard on the westside of Tomales Bay and now within the Point Reyes National Seashore. Heart’s Desire Beach, a favorite summer swimming spot with a natural sand beach, was nearby and was also home to a native family. Theresa described how every cove with reliable fresh water held a Tomalko family, the preferred indigenous descriptor for this band or tribelet of Coast Miwok.

Theresa’s family endured a common pathway of tribal people being separated from their land. After countless generations across two millenia, the Spanish arrived bringing diseases along with the California Mission system that enslaved and converted many tribal people. (Source: Chief Marin) Following the 1849 gold rush and establishment of the State of California, white dairy farmers were granted leases and established the first dairy farms to serve the expanding population...

Read the full post on our website.