Burnt Island Ventures

Tom Ferguson is founder and managing partner. He was lead author of the first CDP Water Disclosure Report in 2010 and joined Imagine H2O in 2015, building programming that now vets more than 500 startups a year across three global programs; companies selected during his tenure raised over $600 million with five exits. He holds an MA from Edinburgh and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Christine E. Boyle, PhD is a partner and was founder and chief executive of Valor Water Analytics, sold to Xylem in 2018, where she then spent five years as vice president of digital product development. Partner Steve Kloos, PhD was membrane technology leader and a member of the venture capital team at GE Water, and later a partner at True North Venture Partners. Operating partner Wayne Byrne co-founded OxyMem, acquired by DuPont in 2019.

Burnt Island raises small, sector-pure water funds. Form D filings show Fund I selling $4.53 million after a February 2021 first sale from a San Francisco address. Fund II began selling in December 2023 and had reported $18.45 million by its November 2025 amendment, roughly four times the debut vehicle. A parallel Fund II-A added $5 million from a June 2025 first sale.

Alongside the flagships, Burnt Island Ventures Opportunity Fund I reported $6.56 million from an October 2024 first sale, giving the firm follow-on capacity into its own winners, and a 2025 SPV I vehicle sold $1 million in October 2025. Reported proceeds across the five vehicles total roughly $35.5 million. Every filing names Tom Ferguson as executive officer and Burnt Island Ventures Management LLC as promoter, and the later vehicles are filed from Brooklyn, New York. The mandate is narrow by design: the firm finds, funds and supports water entrepreneurs, framing water as the medium through which climate change is felt.