Smart solutions to the drought require helping major urban customers, since about half of a city water system lies on private property. Most large water users lack the data to manage their use and protect their properties against leaks, which cause roughly $10 billion a year in private property damage. Banyan Water serves enterprise customers across the country, such as Blackstone’s real estate portfolio, with cloud-based software to perform analytics on water and sewer bills, identifying savings opportunities.

The company’s software then syncs with meters and controllers on customer’s property to remotely control outdoor irrigation use and monitor flow through pipes into a building. The impact has been more than 50 percent water savings, and ongoing, real-time leak detection. Investors include Cue Ball Capital and Catamount Ventures.

Have you looked at your home water bill lately? Did it make sense to you? If so, your local utility might use WaterSmart Software, an oPower for water that helps peer-benchmark residential water use to encourage conservation, and helps utilities like East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves Oakland and the surrounding area, better engage with their residential customers. WaterSmart recently raised $7 million at a $21 million pre-money valuation.

In a drought, water utilities face pressure to encourage conservation from their customers. But most utilities’ revenues equal the price of water service times the volume of water sold. Predicting the impact of conservation and rate changes turns out to be a tricky data problem. Valor Water Analytics sells software to help utilities make better financial decisions, has landed multiple utility contracts (including Sonoma County) in its first months as a live commercial entity and is Y Combinator backed.

In any discussion about urban water management, the utility is the elephant in the room. Fathom sells a managed service to help water utilities, including the city of Menlo Park, link meters, billing systems and other data sources to intelligently run the water utility grid. Originally a spin-out of an investor-owned utility company, the solution was developed by a utility for a utility. Fathom’s investors include XPV Capital and Silver Lake Kraftwerk, and the company notes a 10 percent water conservation impact among its client benefits.

Water Treatment

Kurion provides a fascinating example of Silicon Valley innovation helping to address a major water crisis. The company’s technologies, which include removal of hazards from wastewater streams, were deployed at Fukushima after the nuclear disaster. Kurion’s solutions removed more than 70 percent of the radioactivity from the water. Kurion’s investors include Lux Capital and Firelake Capital, and the company has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue since its founding in 2008.

Desalitech has also attracted venture investment with novel water treatment technology. The company innovated on the widely used reverse osmosis treatment methodology. Its proprietary closed-circuit process design and engineering cuts the water wasted in reverse osmosis treatment by half or more, and reduces energy used in treatment by about one-third.

It offers customers a typical payback within a year, and sells mostly to large industrials, including Coca Cola. Desalitech raised $11 million in December, 2014, led by Spring Creek and Liberation Capital.

Reuse and Recycling

Countries that have learned to cope with water scarcity, like Israel, reuse the majority of their water. In America, just a tiny fraction of our water is recycled. In fact, we use water that is treated to drinking quality standards for almost every application.

Nexus eWater, born in Australia’s drought-stricken environment, provides an onsite treatment solution for homes to reuse wastewater for outdoor irrigation and flushing toilets. Nexus eWater has played a major role in influencing California water policy to enable onsite residential reuse. The company recently closed a $2.1 million Series A, and was featured in KB Homes’ annual report as a solutions partner.

Energy

Research from the California Energy Commission found that about 20 percent of the state’s electricity is used to transport and treat water and wastewater. Natel Energy’s solutions allow hydropower generation in small water conduits using novel turbine technology. Historically, hydropower systems have required a high vertical drop in water flow to generate power efficiently. Natel’s solutions open a range of new installation opportunities by working with lower vertical drops.

The company’s customers include Apple, which recently partnered with Natel to develop hydropower in an existing irrigation canal in Oregon. Natel recently closed a $7 million Series B.

Agriculture

Agriculture uses about 80 percent of California’s water. Over the past decade, a wave of venture-backed companies developed sensors and software to improve farm irrigation. That group of companies, including venture-backed Puresense and Aquaspy, developed novel soil-moisture monitoring technology, helping farmers increase crop yield per drop of water used.

Yet, despite generating good results for farmers, results for investors seeking big returns have been mixed thus far. The struggle to achieve hockey-stick growth stemmed, in part, from the difficulty of penetrating a fragmented agricultural customer base.

The recent success of a new group of companies offering business intelligence to farms might just lead to a rising tide for water innovation in agriculture. One example, Farmlogs, a Y Combinator alum that recently raised a $10 million Series B. The company includes data related to water for farms in its business intelligence software, but its software focuses on a broader set of farm decisions that include water use.

The promise, from a water perspective, comes from the recent ability demonstrated by Farmlogs and other farm data startups to penetrate the market.

The company, just a few years old, claims 15 percent of America’s 2.1 million farms use its service. A data dashboard to so many customers offers the potential to better manage water. It also offers a signal that other Silicon Valley water startups can achieve rapid penetration of the agricultural market, either independently or in partnership with companies like Farmlogs.

From drought to flood, pipes to pumps, agriculture to industry, the water market needs innovation more than ever. These companies represent a new wave of water startups that show the promise of commercial success and a safer water future.

Author’s note: Several of Imagine H2O’s portfolio companies are mentioned in this post: WaterSmart Software, Valor Water Analytics, Nexus eWater and Natel Energy.

Featured Image: Meryll/Shutterstock

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