Austin is roughly three hours from the ocean, but it has a perhaps surprising number of startups focused on maritime technologies.
In focus now is Saronic Technologies Inc., which makes autonomous ships that float atop the ocean. The Austin-based company said it has raised a $55 million series A funding round. It was led by San Francisco firm Caffeinated Capital. Other backers include Austin-based 8VC, as well as U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Silent Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, Ensemble VC (also based in Austin) and Cubit Capital. That brings its total raised to $70 million, according to Crunchbase.
Saronic's maritime drones are geared toward military applications, with an eye toward helping the U.S. and its allies build an expansive, high-tech fleet of ocean-going vehicles in an effort to outpace China.
It is developing six- and 13-foot vessels that it says can carry "diverse payloads in communication-denied and GPS-denied environments." They can be deployed from airdrops or out of other ships.
"America's conventional shipbuilding ecosystem lacks the agility to match the threats posed by our adversaries, and many proposed solutions for the fleet aren't cohesively designed for the mission. Saronic stands apart," stated Dino Mavrookas, the company's co-founder and CEO. "Saronic has worked closely with the Navy to build a solution that meets their requirements. We're putting software, autonomy, and mission profiles first, reshaping design for rapid production and deployment, and creating a novel breed of autonomous vessels that can meet current and future threats."
Mavrookas, a former Navy SEAL, co-founded the company with Doug Lambert, Vibhav Altekar and Rob Lehman last year. Saronic currently shows 11 job openings for its Austin office.
"Saronic’s [autonomous surface vessels] act in swarms of small, cheap, autonomous boats that augment larger naval vessels and can be employed for a variety of tactical mission use cases to deliver increased effects and protect lives," Ensemble VC Managing Partner Collin West wrote in a newsletter update.
Saronic isn't the only ocean-bound Austin startup. Terradepth Inc., founded by Joe Wolfel and Judson Kauffman, has developed autonomous submarines. The company has raised about $30 million, according to Crunchbase.
Meanwhile, Ocean Infinity, a local startup that creates and uses robotic technology to transform operations at sea, has helped other companies and organizations learn more about the ocean, from evaluating seabed conditions off Guyana for ExxonMobil to exploring Antarctica with scientific expeditions.
