THE COMPANY TURNING AIR INTO DRINKING WATER, AND DOING IT AT SCALE
Explaining Kumulus
For someone hearing about Kumulus for the first time, how would you explain what you have built, how it works, and the gap you are trying to fill? In several places, access to drinking water depends on fragile infrastructure, long logistics chains, or plastic bottled water. Even in regions where water systems exist, reliability and quality are not always guaranteed, and getting water to the point of use can become expensive, wasteful, and operationally painful. That is the gap that led us to start Kumulus. The idea came from seeing, very concretely, how quickly “access” breaks down in remote or constrained environments: water becomes a logistics problem, and plastic becomes the default. We wanted a solution that produces water on-site, where it is actually consumed, so teams and communities are less dependent on deliveries and fragile systems. Kumulus builds atmospheric water generators, solutions that produce drinking water from the air directly on site. In simple terms: the solution captures and condenses ambient air into water droplets. The collected water is then filtered through a multi-step process that includes 4 different types of filters. The purified water is finally mineralized before it is ready to be dispensed. The water is high-quality and rigorously validated, with 8,000+ tests completed, and quality aligned with WHO guidelines and EU standards.
The Early Days
Turning air into drinking water sounds almost futuristic. What were the early days like when you were trying to move this from an idea to something tangible? The early days were very “hardware real life”. The concept seems simple, but putting it into practice is where the work begins: designing a system that performs across changing humidity and temperature conditions, building a treatment process that consistently meets quality standards, and engineering a product that can run day after day with minimal friction for end users. We also learned quickly that trust is earned through proof, not claims. That meant testing, iterating, and validating performance in real environments, not just in a lab. Hardware forces humility. You can not ship a slide deck. You ship a machine that must work every day, under constraints, with maintenance and user behavior taken into account.
Why Pull Water From Air?
There are many approaches to solving water scarcity; infrastructure investment, water recycling, purification. Why did you bet on pulling water directly from air, and what convinced you this was the right lever? Because in many contexts, the constraint is not “water exists somewhere”. The constraint is the last mile: reliability, quality, and logistics. Traditional approaches like desalination or large-scale networks can be effective, but they are capital-intensive, slow to deploy, and dependent on centralized infrastructure and governance. Bottled water fills the gap, but at a high environmental and operational cost. Of course, it goes without saying that air-to-water generators are not a replacement for all infrastructure. They are, however, a complementary lever that shines where decentralization matters: remote sites, islands, facilities with unstable supply, and organizations that want more predictable access without a complex logistics chain. What convinced us was the practicality: it can be deployed relatively fast, scaled modularly, and operated with consistent quality when designed properly.
Practicality and Adoption
A lot of climate hardware struggles to move from innovation to real adoption. How have you worked to make Kumulus not just technically viable, but practical and competitive in the real world? We have focused on three things that drive adoption: Water quality and trust: robust treatment, mineralization for consistent taste, and a quality approach aligned with stringent standards. Operational simplicity: connected machines, remote monitoring, and a service approach that reduces the burden on the customer. Business model fit: many customers do not want another asset to manage. Our “Water-as-a-Service” approach is built to make adoption easier, with predictable pricing and maintenance included. In short: it is not enough to just make water. You must make water reliably, at high quality, and in a way that fits procurement and operations.
Lessons From the Field
What have you learned from deploying systems in the field? Two simple, but quite practical lessons stand out. Firstly, easy access drives consumption. If the water is far away, warm, or inconvenient to refill, people drink less. And this holds true everywhere when you really think about it! Especially on work sites and remote locations, placement matters a lot: water needs to be close to where teams operate, otherwise the “solution” exists, but the team’s hydration does not improve. Another learning is that what customers really buy is continuity: high water quality always, predictable output, and a system that is easy to maintain. That is why monitoring, filter replacement routines, and clear maintenance processes are as important as the core technology itself.
Toughest Challenges
What has been one of the toughest challenges you have faced so far, and what did it teach you about building this kind of company? One of the hardest parts has been bridging the gap between technical performance and real adoption. With climate hardware, people want to believe, but they also need reliability, certifications, and a clear operational and financial rationale. Capturing air and condensing it into water is just one step. The real challenge is delivering consistently safe, high-quality drinking water day after day in real conditions. It taught us to build like an infrastructure company: robust treatment and mineralization systems, rigorous testing, service and maintenance planning, and continuous iteration based on real conditions. In water, credibility compounds slowly but pays off enormously when you do the fundamentals right.
Balancing Growth and Access
You have said water scarcity is a “human problem,” not just one affecting certain regions. How do you think about balancing commercial growth with making the solution accessible to those who need it most? I see water scarcity as a human problem because it affects resilience everywhere, even in places that assume water is “solved”. We approach this by building a model that can scale reliably and sustainably, because scale is what ultimately reduces friction and improves affordability. In practice, that means we often start with organizations that have a clear operational need and the ability to pay for reliable water access. This creates the deployment base, operational learning, and financial durability needed to expand. In parallel, we work through partnerships and targeted programs to bring high-quality water access to communities and sites under stronger constraints, including schools and remote settings. For climate infrastructure, sustainable growth is what makes impact durable.
Working with Existing Ecosystems
You have raised funding from a mix of investors, including a major bottled water company. How do you navigate building a solution that challenges existing systems while working with players from that same ecosystem? We do not see this as “us versus incumbents”. Water is too fundamental for ideology. The real question is: who is willing to support solutions that reduce plastic, reduce logistics, and improve reliability where networks are constrained? If an investor or partner from the broader water ecosystem shares that direction, it can accelerate deployment rather than slow it down. We need a mix of solutions, not just one innovation. Atmospheric water generation is not the answer to every water challenge, just as desalination, recycling, or networks are not universal answers either. Different contexts require different tools. Working with partners from across the ecosystem can be constructive if there is alignment on outcomes: reducing plastic dependence, improving reliability where supply is constrained, and raising quality standards. We stay very clear on our mission and product requirements, and we collaborate when incentives align with building more resilient, less wasteful water access.
Scaling the Solution
What needs to be true for a solution like Kumulus to scale across different countries and contexts? Three things: Clear compliance pathways: the ability to validate and demonstrate water quality according to the regulations and testing requirements of each market. Serviceability and maintenance capability: reliable maintenance partners, parts supply, and remote monitoring to ensure uptime. Fit with local constraints: humidity and power availability vary, so deployments must be engineered with local conditions in mind, including off-grid energy options where relevant. Scaling water solutions is less about “shipping units” and more about building a repeatable operating system.
Advice for Deep Tech Founders
For founders building in climate or deep tech, what is something you have learned that people often underestimate? They underestimate the cost of “real world readiness”. In deep tech, the prototype is only the beginning. The hard part is reliability, certification, manufacturing quality, supply chain resilience, and service. Also, you can’t outsource trust. You have to earn it through performance, references, and time. The upside is that if you do this well, you build defensibility that is hard to copy.
The Future Role of Kumulus
When you think about the future, what role do you hope Kumulus will play in how the world accesses water? I hope Kumulus helps make drinking water more local and more resilient. A useful analogy is what happened in energy: instead of relying only on centralized generation, many sites now complement the grid with on-site solar and storage to improve continuity and reduce dependency. We see water evolving in a similar direction. Not replacing networks but complementing them where they struggle. Long-term, the ambition is to build a modern, decentralized water utility: systems that are measurable, maintainable, and deployable at scale, bringing high-quality water access to places where logistics and fragility still define daily life.
To learn more visit: https://www.kumuluswater.com/
