Rainmaker Technology has raised $100 million in Series B funding to expand its atmospheric research organization and reduce the cost of producing freshwater through cloud seeding.
The round included investments from NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital, and Dream Ventures.
El Segundo, California-based Rainmaker develops weather modification technology designed to increase precipitation by flying weather-resistant drones into winter storm clouds and releasing small amounts of silver iodide.
The particles provide surfaces around which ice crystals can form and grow before falling as rain or snow.
Rainmaker has also developed radar and validation systems intended to measure how much additional precipitation is attributable to individual seeding operations.
The company said it became the first private company to physically validate the results of cloud seeding operations earlier in 2026.
Over four months, Rainmaker recorded 82 seeding signatures that it said directly linked precipitation to individual flights.
Those events accounted for more than 145 million verified gallons of freshwater, equivalent to nearly the annual water consumption of 1,800 U.S. households, according to the company.
In August, Rainmaker said it produced 19 million gallons of water in approximately three hours near Homer, Alaska.
The Series B proceeds will support a significant expansion of Rainmaker’s research organization, which includes atmospheric scientists, radar and satellite specialists and materials scientists.
Research will focus on improving decisions around which clouds should be seeded, when operations should occur, how much seeding material should be deployed and where resulting precipitation would provide the greatest benefits for watersheds, agriculture, ecosystems and industry.
Rainmaker also plans to support research at national laboratories and fund weather modification research at U.S. universities.
The company expects its production economics to improve as deployments scale and additional drone teams operate simultaneously.
Rainmaker expects its water production costs during the November 2026 through April 2027 season to fall below many alternative sources of incremental supply, including desalination and programs that pay farmers to leave fields unplanted.
Beyond water production, Rainmaker ultimately plans to apply similar weather modification and atmospheric technologies to other agricultural challenges, including hail damage and poor soil conditions.
KEY QUOTES:
“The future of water is the future of everything. With this historic investment in weather modification technology, Rainmaker will continue to conduct frontier atmospheric research, cloud seed to end drought in the American west, and develop the tech stack that will make the earth more habitable for generations to come.”
Augustus Doricko, Founder and CEO of Rainmaker Technology
