TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

Israeli Startup On Indiegogo Promises Rain On Demand

By TechTaffy Desk

Rain on Request just started a crowdfunding campaign in Indiegogo looking for $1 million, to make it rain on demand. How does one make it rain? The company says it uses technology developed by radar experts and atmospheric scientists in Israel, that uses a controlled electric field to influence the local atmosphere as air ionization causes formation of nucleation centers, leading to cloud development and rainfall.

According to Rain on Request, once the system is set up, it takes 72 hours to initiate rainfall to produce an increase of 50% to 400% of rainfall in the location, relative to the mean seasonal rate. Rain generated by the system will cover an area of approximately 15 miles radius of the ionization station. When rainfall reaches the desired level, it takes approximately one hour to shut off the system.

Why look for crowdfunding? Rain on Request says it took hundreds of meetings with government agencies in California as well as insurance companies, in trying to get funding for the project, but could not make much headway.

[Image courtesy: Rain on Request]

Just in

Series A

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.
Around the web

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 
Fundings

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.
Around the web

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 
IT

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.