🌦️ Rewriting the Forecast for Freshwater

As climate change highlights the paradox of floods and droughts, water scarcity is fast becoming one of the defining challenges of our time. Across agriculture, hydropower and urban supply, 3 out of 4 people could soon feel the strain of drying skies by 2050.

That’s why an old idea is getting a high-tech reboot.

Cloud seeding. The process of encouraging rainfall by dispersing particles into clouds has long been dismissed as too imprecise, expensive, or controversial to scale.

But breakthroughs in AI forecasting, drones, and microphysics modeling are changing the equation.

Trials taking place across Switzerland, Australia, Abu Dhabi, USA and India are pioneering new ways to make rain, and to prove it works, along with data to back it up.

As water scarcity intensifies, weather modification is moving from science fiction to serious climate adaptation strategy.

And so before he joins us at the HackSummit, we caught up with Rainmaker’s CEO, Augustus Doricko to hear how he is rewriting a future without water scarcity with drones that make it rain, with a goal to become America’s largest producer of freshwater, by harnessing the atmosphere.

In this week’s edition:

• How and why Rainmaker is ‘making it rain’

• What you’ll learn at Augustus Doricko’s Fireside Chat

• Why 500 Founders, Investors will meet at HackSummit

🧱 The How and Why of Cloud Seeding

“What we are doing at Rainmaker is very complex. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we are building four deep-tech companies under one roof. But at the same time, the big picture is very simple: the world is running out of freshwater, and that touches everything. Our food, our forests, our economy, and our kids’ future.”

Their system can seed clouds at a fraction of the cost and emissions of manned aircraft, even flying in severe icing conditions that would ground planes. The result: a scalable path to water abundance, capable of refilling aquifers, replenishing lakes, and restoring local water cycles.

We caught up with CEO Augustus Doricko to learn how Rainmaker is rewriting the forecast for freshwater. And now you can too.

🗓️ One year later…

“I came to the HackSummit because there are some of the best Climate entrepreneurs that I’ve met in my life so far to bounce ideas of them about what an abundant and adaptive future looks like,” Augustus told us at the 2024 edition of the HackSummit.

Since then he went on to close a $25 million Series A in May 2025. Led by Lowercarbon Capital and included participation from firms like Starship Ventures, Long Journey Ventures and 1517 Ventures.

Next up: Jakob Diepenbrock of Discipulus Ventures and Augustus share the stage to reveal his ambitious plan to to make Rainmaker the biggest single producer of freshwater in America, at the HackSummit on December 10-11th.

Meet the Climate Deep Tech Community IRL

Now’s the perfect time to lock in your ticket to the HackSummit, where optimism meets action.

You’ll surround yourself with 500 techno-optimists, reindustrialization mavericks and the builders and funders of what’s next, as we meet at Newlab this December 10-11th.

Lock in your pass today to join Augustus and 100+ more pioneering CEOs and Founders under one roof.

Laura at Hack

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