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Watershed money raised



On Feb. 1, Watershed, a climate software company, raised $100 million from venture capitalists.  This was an all-equity round, i.e. none of the $100 million consists of lent money.




Climate software, as you have probably already figured out by now. is software useful for such matters as tracking carbon emissions. An investor will put money into it only on the presumption that people and institutions are going to want to track emissions -- that THIS is a growth industry.

It is, I think, good news for the planet that heavy-hitting VC investors like Sequioa and Kleiner Perkins do think so, and ponied up this money. 

Watershed announced that the fund-raising valued the company at $1.8 billion.    

What does that mean?  Well, it is an invitation to do a little arithmetic. If the new investors put in $100 million and this valued the whole company (100% of equity) at $1.8 billion the implication is that the new owners have taken roughly 5.5 percent of the whole. 

Meanwhile, the field of ESG investing has come under considerable political heat of late.  This news, of a company implicitly valued by profit-and-loss eyed capitalists at $1.8 billion that is in the business of climate software, is a datum that suggests that the "E" part of ESG is robust. 

PS Happy Valentine's Day to the lovers of the world. 

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  1. Paul D. Van PeltFebruary 15, 2024 at 1:25 PM

    Venture capitalism is another form of high-risk legal gambling, seems to me. Maybe like futures trading, but, (maybe) not so risky. It is a subset , risky and not for ordinary people. People will do it. They may decline to talk about it...as well they should.

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