We raised our seed round to keep frontier AI open and affordable.
New backing lets us grow the team, train more efficient models, and keep our promise: DEW stays free, forever.
- Rainwater Labs has closed its seed round — our first institutional raise.
- It funds a bigger research & infrastructure team and more efficient training runs.
- The commitments don't change: DEW stays free, weights stay open.
Today we're sharing that Rainwater Labs has closed its seed round. The backing gives us the runway to do one thing well: build energy-efficient, affordable, and sovereign foundation models — and keep them in the hands of the many.
Why we raised
Frontier AI today is concentrated, expensive, and increasingly closed. We believe that's a risk, not a destiny. This round lets us invest in efficient training and a small, senior team — so capability and openness don't have to trade off against each other.
What it changes
Concretely, the round means more researchers and infrastructure engineers, more compute for efficient training runs, and faster releases — starting with the models that power DEW.
- Grow the team across research and infrastructure.
- Train leaner models that cost less to run, everywhere.
- Keep DEW free — no paywall, no selling a child's learning.
Our commitments
Money changes a company. We want to be clear about what it won't change here: openness, affordability, and who this technology is for.
What's next
We're hiring researchers and infrastructure engineers who care about efficient training, open weights, and AI that works for the many. If that's you, we'd love to talk.
“We're not building AI to be owned by a few. We're building it to be abundant — like rain.”
Build the future of open AI with us.
We're a small team in India hiring across research and infrastructure.
Media enquiries? Write to us at media@rainwaterlabs.com