Market Focus
Investment Criteria
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INCUBATOR & SKUNKWORKS
Mazarine Labs provides founders a place to explore your vision and accelerate the commercialization of your vision, in partnership with Mazarine and our network of partners
A whiteboard...
Let's get the business model right
Mazarine Labs exists as a skunkworks for building (or shelving) embryonic business models that address water/wastewater challenges in agriculture, buildings, industry, or utilities.
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A safe place to think radically
We recognize that there is no shortage of creativity in addressing water/wastewater challenges; however, there is clearly a lack of 'safe' spaces for inventors and entrepreneurs to explore their vision, which may be seen as maverick, or even crazy, by peers. Mazarine Labs is a safe place for being wrong about something.
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Do the hardest thing first​
Before building a website, participating in demo days, or raising money, Mazarine Labs' guiding philosophy is that we'd better understand the future market demand for the envisioned offering before we go forward. "Who are we building this for and why?" is one of the harder questions to answer, and the raison d'être of Mazarine Labs.
Patient, and deliberate, capital
Breakthrough innovations sometimes take multiple iterations to get right, particularly around getting the business model right. To compress the pre-launch process, let's assemble the right human capital, refine the intellectual capital, apply some social capital, and finally begin to fuel the business with tranches of financial capital.
...and a launchpad
Ready to compete
While we do value creative brainstorming, unpacking competing hypotheses, and 'whiteboarding' customer segments, sooner or later the company needs to soft and hard launch. If pre-launch planning and the launch were done right, incumbent players will immediately take notice.
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Introducing NewCo
Informed by market trends, the competitive landscape, and a network of partners, Mazarine Labs is able to take science projects (eg: university, garage, or dorm room) and launch businesses from scratch (ie: a NewCo) with the inventor/founder and Mazarine's syndicate of early-stage investors.
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Sometimes a re-launch makes sense
As an early-stage investor Mazarine sees more than our fair share of young companies who are already in-market, but not quite getting the traction they envisioned. Mazarine Labs is where such companies will find the resources needed to 'catch the wind' and re-launch with more momentum.
Workbenches
Mazarine Labs is organized around virtual workbenches:
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Each workbench is focused on either a specific submarket, a particularly complex challenge, or an area of need we believe warrants time in our skunkworks. Inherently there is a degree of overlap between workbenches.
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Workbenches are either public or private
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Public workbenches have members from Mazarine’s network of investors, venture partners, portfolio companies, and subject matter experts, brainstorming, challenging and exchanging ideas.
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Private workbenches are confidential, have a more limited scope, are created jointly with investment syndicate partners or corporates to address a specific need or interest.
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Public workbenches may have one or several active projects, or may be in a phase where we are exploring potential projects.​​​
If you are interested in participating in a workbench, have ideas for other workbenches, or would like to explore setting up a private workbench, please send us an e-mail by clicking here.
Workbenches with active projects
Suburban/Rural Utilities
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While many companies innovate for the large and essentially impenetrable big utilities, Mazarine finds the small/medium utility opportunity compelling. This workbench explores technical and business innovations that address the needs of the smaller utility.
Data Science, Computer Engineering, and Information Technology​
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A workbench entirely dedicated to data science-related innovations, some of which may not yet have a use case in "water". Areas of inquiry include machine learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), edge computing, natural language processing (NLP), decision sciences, quantum computing, and other leading-edge approaches.
Indirect Water Risk​
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The 'FIRE' sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) faces growing indirect water-related risks spanning agriculture, real estate, supply chain, etc. Here we explore approaches that mitigated risk through, such as innovations in data science.
Social Impact​
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This workbench is home to our efforts to accelerate early-stage companies with offerings that address the water and wastewater needs that deliver meaningful social impact.
Workbenches being explored
Smart Home / Smart Building​
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Innovations that support owners, operators, and occupiers to more effectively manage water consumption, protect real estate assets, and enhance the health and safety of occupants through IoT and data analytics.
Process Innovation​
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A workbench for advancing new technologies and new approaches that provide a step-change in the cost/performance ratio of current processes for water and wastewater treatment.
Agriculture & Aquaculture
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We are bullish on innovations that address​ water, runoff, and wastewater inefficiencies and risks in agriculture and aquaculture. This ag-tech workbench is where we explore opportunities in the Food-Energy-Water Nexus.
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Surface Water ​
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With a primary focus on public health and source water risks, Mazarine has a focus on innovations that enable enhanced visibility and control of lake, reservoir, and river health, also known as 'smart lakes' or 'smart rivers'.
PFOS/PFAS​
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This workbench is dedicated to technological innovations that are effective in testing/scanning and removing/eliminating PFOS / PFAS in the water supply, in wastewater, and in potable water at the point of entry (PoE) and the point of use (PoU)
A whiteboard...
Let's get the business model right
Mazarine Labs exists as a skunkworks for building (or shelving) embryonic business models that address water/wastewater challenges in agriculture, buildings, industry, or utilities.
​
A safe place to think radically
We recognize that there is no shortage of creativity in addressing water/wastewater challenges; however, there is clearly a lack of 'safe' spaces for inventors and entrepreneurs to explore their vision, which may be seen as maverick, or even crazy, by peers. Mazarine Labs is a safe place for being wrong about something.
​
Do the hardest thing first​
Before building a website, participating in demo days, or raising money, Mazarine Labs' guiding philosophy is that we'd better understand the future market demand for the envisioned offering before we go forward. "Who are we building this for and why?" is one of the harder questions to answer, and the raison d'être of Mazarine Labs.
Patient, and deliberate, capital
Breakthrough innovations sometimes take multiple iterations to get right, particularly around getting the business model right. To compress the pre-launch process, let's assemble the right human capital, refine the intellectual capital, apply some social capital, and finally begin to fuel the business with tranches of financial capital.
...and a launchpad