Rainmaker Technology Corporation said in the company said in the announcement that it has raised a $100 million Series B round to expand its atmospheric research organization and to reduce the cost of producing new freshwater by cloud seeding. The round included investments from NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital and Dream Ventures, according to the El Segundo, California-based company.
Rainmaker flies weather-resistant drones into winter storm clouds and releases a small amount of silver iodide, a particle that ice crystals form around. Those crystals, the company said, grow heavy enough to fall as rain or snow, after which its own radar and validation systems measure how much additional precipitation each operation produced — a step it says has historically been absent from cloud seeding.
Earlier this year, the company said it became the first private company to physically validate the results of cloud seeding operations. Over four months it recorded 82 unambiguous seeding signatures, described as distinct radar patterns tying precipitation to a seeding flight, which together account for more than 145 million verified gallons of freshwater, nearly the annual water use of 1,800 American households. In August, Rainmaker produced 19 million gallons in about three hours near Homer, Alaska, which the company called a significant improvement in the technology's efficiency.
The funding will support a rapid expansion of a research team that today includes atmospheric scientists, radar and satellite specialists and material scientists. Their work is aimed at the questions that determine how much water an operation yields: which clouds to seed and when, how much material to release, and where precipitation should fall to do a watershed the most good for farms, ecosystems and industry. Rainmaker also said it will support research at national laboratories and fund weather modification research at American universities.
Rainmaker said its cost per acre-foot of water falls sharply as production rises and that additional drone teams can operate in parallel. By the November 2026–April 2027 season, it expects its water to cost less than most other sources of new supply, including desalination and paying farmers to leave fields unplanted. Water is its first focus and not its last, the company said, with the same approach intended for other limits on productive land such as hail damage and poor soil. Rainmaker operates in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, California and Colorado and is working to expand throughout the American West and globally.
