Water has always been the quiet constant. It does not trend. It does not chase headlines. It just shows up, or it does not, and entire communities feel the consequences. That is why Vital Lyfe matters. Founded in 2024 in Hawthorne, California, this is what happens when people who spent over a decade building spacecraft decide gravity is optional and water access should not depend on aging pipes, grid access, or geography. Vital Lyfe stepped out of stealth with a $24M seed round, over $18M in equity plus committed debt, led by Interlagos and General Catalyst, with participation from Generational Partners, Cantos, Space VC, and Also Capital. A global problem met with serious conviction capital.
Jon Criss, CEO and Co-founder, brings 13+ years at SpaceX across Starlink and Dragon, shipping hardware into environments where failure is not theoretical, it is catastrophic. Andrew Harner, COO and Co-founder, adds 9 years at SpaceX spanning mission management, avionics, reliability, and FAA-facing risk work, backed by Stanford aerospace training and a disciplined respect for lean execution. These are operators who understand manufacturing, integration, and what actually breaks when systems leave the lab.
Vital Lyfe builds portable, modular watermaking systems designed to operate at human scale, not municipal scale. Seawater, brackish water, contaminated freshwater, ice, condensation, if there is more than a gallon, the system can work with it. Aerospace-grade engineering meets advanced membrane science and smart power management, all engineered to operate off-grid and off-infrastructure. Lower recovery rates allow natural dilution, keeping environmental impact close to zero while delivering clean drinking water where fixed systems simply cannot reach.
The company is already validating prototypes with maritime groups, NGOs, and off-grid users in environments where durability is non-negotiable and performance is tested daily by reality. This $24M accelerates manufacturing, expands field deployments, and advances the transition from validated prototypes to scaled production ahead of consumer-ready products targeted for 2026. Marine environments lead the way, followed by disaster response, remote communities, and underserved urban areas where water insecurity often hides in plain sight.
There is a lesson here for founders paying attention. Deep domain pain plus teams who have shipped hardware at scale attracts real capital before revenue curves look polite. Interlagos, built by former SpaceX leaders Achal Upadhyaya and Tom Ochinero, understands execution risk because they lived it. General Catalyst understands platform potential when infrastructure is rebuilt from first principles. Vital Lyfe sits at the intersection of climate reality and engineering discipline, turning water from a structural weakness into a resilient, portable constant.
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