Aquaria, the company building communities and cities supplied with water from the sky, has successfully raised a sum of $112 million to build the future of water infrastructure.
According to certain reports, the stated funding round saw its participation coming from the likes of Mistletoe, Ciri Ventures, Soma Capital, HF0, Bow Capital, Umami Capital, and former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. This particular round will now support the company’s bid to actively seek out sustainable atmospheric water investment projects, and continue expanding its footprint into new regions.
More on the same would reveal how, as part of the investment, Aquaria has signed an agreement withUpwell Water. Here, the latter will provide $100 million to facilitate deployment of Aquaria’s solutions for qualifying projects.
“Southeast Asia is facing a climate crisis, in which water access is a core issue. We’re happy to help bring Aquaria’s sustainable technology solutions to counter the water crisis in Asia,” said Taizo Son fromMistletoe. “Aquaria’s mission of making water accessible to all aligns with our goal of developing a sustainable future, addressing global climate problems through innovations in technology.”
Taking a deeper view of the company’s plans with the new funds, they include developing and financing sustainable, secure water supply solutions for residential, hospitality, and commercial properties. These solutions include Aquaria’s “water from air” technology which effectively streamlines project development, reduces timelines, and unlocks new sources of water for growth
Across the stated assortment of properties, developers can actively demonstrate water access, overcoming restrictions where permits are often denied due to limited water availability. As for property managers, they can use Aquaria’s drinking water solutions to provide immediate potable water access to thousands of people per unit.
Beyond that, Aquaria is also exploring mid-scale water supply opportunities in regions that have, thus far, lacked sufficient access to traditional infrastructure. You see, sectors such as green hydrogen production, mining, and data centers are often located in remote areas where water provision is complex and costly. These areas’ trucked water content is unsurprisingly inefficient, with large infrastructure projects also too expensive or time-consuming.
In response to this problem, Aquaria will leverage project financing secured from Upwell to scale Atmospheric Water Generation (AWG) deployments. Going by the available details, the company will cover 100% of the upfront costs for qualifying projects so to let partners sign flexible, pay-over-time agreements, similar to financing models used in the solar industry. Such an approach, in turn, will significantly lower barriers to large-scale adoption, and at the same time, accelerate the commercialization of Aquaria’s atmospheric Hydrogrid technology.
“Upwell Water is pleased to support Aquaria with capital and teamed solutions to deliver decentralized water to communities,” said Dr. Hu Fleming, President of Upwell Water’s Treatment division. “We note the improvement of the cost of delivered water in the atmospheric water generation segment, and look forward to contributing to meet Aquaria’s growing customer demand.”
Another detail worth a mention here is how Aquaria has already built first homes where the entire water supply is harnessed from the air. Having done that, it is now building 1,000 new homes in Hawaii supplied by atmospheric water. Markedly enough, making this community even more important is the fact that it will be built using solar and batteries to reduce the energy challenges faced by islands like Hawaii. It will also bank upon Aquaria’s modular and scalable technology, which can be setup in no more than just a week.
This technology can be further stacked in parallel to scale production like battery deployments, forming what Aquaria calls a Hydrogrid, which happens to be a water form similar to a solar farm. In case that wasn’t enough, they are also compatible and open for deployment with different types of renewable energy.
“Our air not only supplies us with the oxygen we need to breathe, it provides us with the essential water we need to survive,” said Brian Sheng, co-founder and CEO of Aquaria. “As one of Earth’s most bountiful resources, we’ve yet to unlock atmospheric water to itsfullest potential – until now.”
