Aquivest invests across four structurally distinct but hydrologically connected verticals. Each is governed by its own underwriting framework and its own operating playbook.
1. Water Rights Acquisition & Leasing
Aquivest acquires senior, perfected water rights with defensible priority dates and active beneficial use, then leases them to municipal, industrial, and agricultural users under long-duration, indexed contracts. We underwrite the decree, not the headline acre-foot; priority and seniority determine value through drought, not average-year yield.
2. Water Infrastructure
Aquivest owns and develops the physical plumbing of the water economy: conveyance, storage, treatment, desalination, and managed aquifer recharge. These are long-duration, rate-based or contracted cash flows that compound across the life of the asset; we hold them as permanent infrastructure, not as merchant positions.
3. Agricultural Land with Water Rights
Aquivest acquires irrigated farmland where the water right travels with the title, preserving active beneficial use while optimizing cropping, efficiency, and where appropriate, partial fallow-for-lease programs. The land is the vehicle; the right is the asset, and both are underwritten as a single long-horizon position in the basin.
4. Water Technology & Services
Aquivest provides patient growth capital to operating companies building the metering, treatment, reuse, leak-detection, and digital-twin layer of the water stack. We are a strategic capital partner to founders who need more than a five-year fund can offer and who need an owner that can pull their technology into a portfolio of rights and infrastructure.
Acquisition Framework
Every Aquivest acquisition follows a seven-step framework designed for deal certainty, regulatory clarity, and operational continuity:
- Step 1: Origination & Screening. Basin-level coverage by in-house hydrology and rights teams; quantitative scoring on priority date, aquifer condition, and counterparty standing.
- Step 2: Preliminary Underwriting. Full-cycle underwriting against conservative price-of-water and drought-year yield assumptions; independent hydrogeologic review; title and decree chain verified.
- Step 3: Seller Engagement. Written indicative offer with custodian-confirmed funding; counsel-to-counsel engagement under NDA; stewardship commitments documented up front.
- Step 4: Confirmatory Diligence. Technical, legal, regulatory, and environmental diligence executed in parallel workstreams; water-court record reviewed; aquifer data validated.
- Step 5: Definitive Agreement. All-cash consideration; defined closing conditions; covenants on beneficial use, forfeiture risk, and change-of-use procedure.
- Step 6: Regulatory Clearance. State engineer, water court, irrigation district, and tribal approvals as applicable; HSR where required; community notification where customary.
- Step 7: Closing & Stewardship Onboarding. Day-one operating readiness; retention of technical staff; published Water Stewardship Score™ baseline within 90 days.
