Series A - investor briefing
August 24, 2026Confidential
Series A - investor briefing
August 24, 2026Confidential
The one-liner
Water that pays for its own delivery.
Atmospheric delivery, hydroelectric generation and compute on one set of assets. $50–80M a year by Year 5.
Act one
The market moved.
Everything that follows was an argument twelve months ago. In August 2026 it became the news.
Why now - August 2026
We are not speculative any more.
Aug 10
The largest reservoir in the United States falls to its lowest level on record.
Lake Mead, ninety years after it first filled - Time
Aug 12
Mead and Powell together hit an all-time combined record low.
Colorado River storage, both reservoirs - U.S. News
2026 YTD
Seventy-five data center build-outs worth $130 billion blocked in four months.
Bipartisan opposition, water cited - Tom’s Hardware
Ongoing
Nevada moves to ban cooling-tower water use; Congress opens hearings on data center consumption.
Over 100 million gallons of hidden demand displaced - Avanza Energy
The problem - water
The basin is over-allocated by design.
−180 ft
Lake Mead, 1993–2023
−140 ft
Lake Powell, 2000–2023
16.5B
AF/yr the 1922 Compact assumed
11–13B
AF/yr the river actually carries
The problem - compute
The bottleneck is water, not power.
Companies want Arizona and Nevada. The grid works, the land works. They cannot get water.
The alternatives
Every existing answer fails on the same axis.
Desalination
$1,500–3,000/AF
Coastal only.
Water rights
$3,000–15,000/AF
Adjudicated and already committed.
Conservation
5–10% saved
Efficiency is largely exhausted.
Recycled
10–15% of use
Wrong quality for thermal cooling.
Act two
The platform.
One closed loop: the sky fills the reservoir, the reservoir turns the turbine, the turbine runs the compute.
The solution - delivery
Scout makes water out of the sky.
The atmosphere is the pipeline.
The solution - generation
We do not build dams. We fill the ones that exist.
Ridgway
5–8 MW
1,260 ft of head, generating nothing today.
Steamboat Lake
3–5 MW
1,800 ft of head, generating nothing today.
Aspinall
+5–15%
On 232 MW of existing generation. $12–50M/year.
The solution - compute
Put the data center where the power is made.
At 7,000 feet the air does the cooling a desert site has to buy. Power is made on site.
$0.04/kWh
Aether operating cost
$0.07/kWh
Industry standard
30–40%
Cooling advantage vs. desert
$600/kW
CapEx vs. $1,200–1,600 standard
Act three
The business.
Three revenue lines on one set of assets, each one de-risking the other two.
Market
Three markets, one platform.
TAM
$75–100B
Water, power and compute across the West
SAM
$2–5B
Western basins only, Years 1–10
SOM
$1.7–5.7B
Conservative ten-year obtainable
Business model
Three revenue lines that de-risk each other.
01 - Water
$3,500–5,000/AF
Year 5: $48–60M.
02 - Hydro
$80–120/MWh peak
Year 5: $52–73M.
03 - Compute
$15–25K/kWh
Year 5: $60–147M.
Blended gross margin: 60% to 70–75% by Year 5.
Go to market
Lowest friction first.
Yr 1–2
Sevier
One state, one association. 12,340 AF deficit.
Yr 2–4
Tributaries
Gunnison and Yampa. First 8–12 MW.
Yr 4–5
Aspinall
20–40 MW on an existing FERC permit.
Yr 5+
Crisis premium
Water clears at $10–20K/AF.
Competitive landscape
Everyone else solves one leg.
Scout is built for 48–52 AF/year per unit - an order of magnitude past the atmospheric field.
Financial projection
Positive EBITDA in Year 3.
| $M | Yr 1 | Yr 2 | Yr 3 | Yr 4 | Yr 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water | 1.0 | 2.0 | 9.0 | 11.0 | 13.0 |
| Hydro | 0.5 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 5.0 | 10.0 |
| Compute | - | - | - | 15.0 | 45.0 |
| Revenue | 1.5 | 2.8 | 11.5 | 31.0 | 68.0 |
| Gross margin | 67% | 64% | 65% | 71% | 74% |
| EBITDA | (0.5) | (0.2) | 4.0 | 14.0 | 35.0 |
Capital
Three raises, each one de-risked by the last.
Series A
$5–10M
Prove the basin model on Sevier. Exit to B at $20–30M.
Series B
$25–50M
Tributary expansion and first hydro. Exit to C at $100–150M.
Series C
$100M+
Data center deployment. IPO or strategic at $1–2B.
Risk
Four risks, each with a path through it.
Regulatory - medium
Start where it is simplest
One state, one association.
Technical - low
Degrade, do not fail
Hardware-proven. The model assumes 80%.
Market - medium
Three legs, not one
Proven today; the rest is additive.
Capital - medium
Fund the next phase
2.0-year payback. EBITDA positive in Year 3.
Act four
The ask.
Five to ten million dollars to prove one basin, inside a window that is open now and will not stay open.
Timing
The window is open, and it is closing.
In twelve to eighteen months the deals are struck and the rules harden. We permit in 18–24 months; traditional water infrastructure takes five to ten years.
Defensibility
Filed on day one.
14
Provisional patents across hardware, software, method and system
18–24 mo
Minimum head start on any lateral entrant
Nobody else stands in the convergence. Atmospheric players have no hydro or compute; hydro operators have no delivery; data centers have no supply.
Investment highlights
Why this one.
01
Real problem
Structural, not cyclical.
02
Proven physics
Hardware-validated, not speculative.
03
Convergence
The only integrated water, power and compute play.
04
Capital efficient
Cash by Year 2.
Closing
Let’s build the future of western water infrastructure.
Three mega-trends converge here. We are not betting on one of them.
aetherhydro.com - Series A open
Closing
Let’s build the future of western water infrastructure.
Three mega-trends converge here. We are not betting on one of them.
aetherhydro.com - Series A open