EIF invests in PureTerra’s water tech fund to pre-empt loss of competitiveness due to water scarcity and pollution
The European Investment Fund commits €30 million to PureTerra II, raised by one of the first venture capital teams in Europe dedicated exclusively to water technology.
The fund focuses on speeding up change in the water sector, backing early-stage ventures whose technologies are ready to move from pilot to full-scale industrial deployment.
The EIF commitment is supported by the InvestEU programme of the European Commission.
The European Investment Fund (EIF) has committed €30 million to a new water-focused investment fund based in the Netherlands. PureTerra II, successor to a fund in which the EIF also invested in 2021, is a specialist early-stage venture capital fund focusing on water technologies primarily in Europe. Its managers are one of the first European VC teams dedicated exclusively to the water sector. PureTerra II has a strategic focus on accelerating the transformation to water security, a domain increasingly vital to Europe’s climate resilience and to its industrial competitiveness.
After one of the warmest and driest summers on record, PureTerra II addresses the mounting pressure on the availability of clean water, and its effects on infrastructure and environmental health, with an increasingly felt impact on people’s lives and industry. Water scarcity and pollution are already raising costs for factories, farms and water utilities. The European Commission estimates that meeting existing EU water rules requires an additional €23 billion of investment every year, regardless of the economic cycle. PureTerra II is built to put private capital behind the technologies that can help to deliver this, as public funds cannot fill that investment gap alone.
This financing addresses that gap, contributing to the sustainable blue economy while strengthening Europe’s resource efficiency, industrial autonomy and long-term economic resilience. The EIF commitment, which was ceremonially signed during the European Water Technology Week in Leeuwarden, is supported under the European Commission’s InvestEU programme.
“A fund like this one could hardly be more topical at this point in time.” says Marjut Falkstedt, Chief Executive of the EIF. “Europe’s water resources are under enormous pressure, closely related not only to climate change but also our excessive use of this scarce and crucial element. Targeting innovation in water technology that can help us to recycle, re-use or use more efficiently the water that is available, can be an important signal for both the market and policy makers.”
“Europe already has the technology. Four in every ten water patents worldwide come from here, and far too few of them ever reach industrial scale. The constraint is capital and adoption, not ideas,” says Job van Schelven, Partner at PureTerra. “With the EIF behind us we can take proven European water technology from pilot to full-scale deployment, which is where it starts to matter for Europe’s water security and for the industry that depends on it.”
The EIF’s investment is in line with the European Commission’s 2025 European Water Resilience Strategy, as well as with the underlying priorities of the EIB Group’s Climate Adaptation Plan and Water Resilience Programme and new EU-wide targets on topics such as microplastics and water-efficiency. The recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and the restriction of PFAS under REACH oblige utilities and industry to adopt advanced treatment within a fixed period, turning a long-term environmental concern into capital expenditure with a deadline. Within that framework, the fund targets innovations in water pollution prevention, clean-water processes, circular water systems and climate-resilient resource use, all of which remain structurally underserved by private capital.
Background information:
The European Investment Fund is part of the European Investment Bank Group. Its central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by helping them to access finance. The EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, the EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment.
PureTerra Management B.V. is a Dutch-based fund manager specialising in Climate and Environment investment, with a dedicated focus on water technologies across treatment, monitoring, industrial efficiency, circular water solutions and digital tools enabling sustainability, climate adaptation and resource optimisation. In 2021, EIF committed €30 million to the previous water-focused fund, PureTerra Ventures I Coöperatief U.A., which closed with total commitments of €73 million and built a portfolio of 14 water technology companies.
The InvestEU programme brings together under one roof the many EU financial instruments to support a sustainable economy and mobilise private investment for the European Union’s strategic priorities, such as resilience, green and secure energy, competitiveness, and SME support. InvestEU makes financing in Europe simpler, more efficient, and more flexible. The InvestEU Fund, part of the InvestEU programme, is deployed through implementing partners, which invest in projects using an EU budget guarantee of €29.1 billion to increase their risk-bearing capacity. As a result, including further top-ups, the programme expects to mobilise at least €427 billion in additional investment. InvestEU exceeded its original target of €372 billion in the beginning of 2026.