Deal Dive: Gradiant is the new kind of unicorn worth getting excited about

Remember when it was really attention-grabbing to see a startup turning into a unicorn?

An organization reaching the billion-dollar valuation mark was once a uncommon occasion — therefore the time period ‘unicorn.’ But by 2020 and 2021, it was something however. Every week was like, “Oh, another crypto unicorn? Great. Wow, the fifth neobank this month. Amazing. Wait, wasn’t that company just founded last year?”

I’m not saying this to decrease the accomplishments of any of these corporations, however the investing fever of 2020 and 2021 made that once-scarce milestone nearly seem to be late-stage desk stakes.

But in as we speak’s harder funding market, unicorns are uncommon once more. And there is a new entrant that reveals us what unicorns would possibly appear like in 2023.

This week, Boston-based Gradiant stated it raised a $225 million Series D spherical led by Centaurus Capital at a $1 billion valuation. The firm builds instruments to handle and deal with wastewater for corporations throughout industries akin to meals and beverage, prescribed drugs and mining.

Gradiant’s co-founder and CEO, Anurag Bajpayee, instructed TechCrunch+ that the firm has basically doubled income yearly, for the previous few years. “If you think about the industrial revolution, and the global industry, we have been taking water from nature. We have an opportunity to turn the clock back on the state of water on this planet and give nature water back,” Bajpayee stated.