{"id":3299,"date":"2025-04-08T14:15:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T14:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/?p=3299"},"modified":"2025-04-15T13:20:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T13:20:39","slug":"meet-the-founder-who-raised-6-3m-to-literally-make-it-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/08\/meet-the-founder-who-raised-6-3m-to-literally-make-it-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Founder Who Raised $6.3M to Literally Make It Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

While billionaires hoard water rights and investors play Monopoly with farmland, one 20-something founder is trying something completely different: creating water from thin air.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Meet Augustus Doricko, the CEO of Rainmaker<\/a> \u2014 a Southern California startup using drone-based cloud seeding to artificially increase rainfall over drought-stricken farmland. If it sounds like science fiction, that\u2019s because it kind of is. But it\u2019s also very real, very funded, and potentially very important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

Source: The Hustle YouTube<\/span><\/p>\n

What Even Is Cloud Seeding? <\/h2>\n

“Cloud seeding is just changing the amount of water that falls onto the ground,” Doricko said.<\/p>\n

The science behind it is surprisingly straightforward. <\/p>\n

Doricko explained the process in simpler terms: They find clouds with water droplets that are too small to fall as rain, fly drones into them, and spray a mineral that helps those tiny droplets freeze together and become heavy enough to fall as rain or snow.<\/p>\n

It’s basically tricking clouds into raining when they naturally wouldn’t.<\/p>\n

From Zero to Seed Round<\/h2>\n

Augustus Doricko didn\u2019t graduate college. He was one class away from a degree at UC Berkeley when he dropped out to run a water compliance startup in Texas.<\/p>\n

That job led him to California \u2014 and to the realization that regulation alone wouldn\u2019t solve the water crisis. So he started looking into ways to produce more water.<\/p>\n

The result? A new company, a $6.3M seed round (with backers like Garry Tan), and a scrappy team working out of a warehouse in El Segundo, a former aerospace hub turned frontier tech hotspot\u200b. <\/p>\n

His pitch to investors? Dead simple.<\/p>\n

“It was pretty straightforward to say, ‘Hey, people need water. We can make it.’ That one was easy,” Doricko said. <\/p>\n

At one point, Rainmaker even picked up its entire team and moved to rural Oregon to get around drone regulations. That\u2019s startup energy.<\/p>\n

\n \"HubSpot\n<\/div>\n

The Stakes Are Bigger Than California<\/h2>\n

According to Doricko, failing to solve the West\u2019s water crisis could lead to:<\/p>\n