A small yellow tugboat, the Nellie Bly, sailed into port in Hamburg, Germany on Friday morning after a journey of more than 1,000 nautical miles around Denmark. But this wasn't just any tugboat: While toward the end, it was steered by two operators on board who guided it through narrow waters, during most of the journey it was being controlled remotely from a waterfront conference room in Boston.
Sea Machines Robotics Inc., the Boston-based company behind the trip, usually tests its autonomous vehicles in waters closer to home – another of its tugboats could be seen from the office window navigating Boston Harbor on Friday morning. But the two-week Denmark journey was a chance for the startup to stretch its sea legs and dip its toes in the waters of something a little bigger.
“This is a longevity test,” said founder and CEO Michael Johnson from the sixth floor control room, decked out with monitors and festooned with a Danish flag. “Putting it through 1,000 miles but also bringing in non-company personnel — merchant marine officers to come and use our technology.”
Sea Machines, founded in 2014, has raised upwards of $30 million in venture capital, according to publicly available records. Each round has seen investors get more enthusiastic, said Johnson, who wants to double the company’s 55 employees in the next year.
“There's a huge opportunity for a company like ours to really step in and be that advanced technology company of the entire space,” he said, describing it as a sector that’s currently dominated by “hundred-year-old dinosaur companies.”
Right now, the bulk of the company’s commercial offerings are for what Johnson categorized as “work boats,” in predictable, controlled domains, doing things like data collection, guard duty, or oil spill response.
But the next frontier is going “over the horizon,” with operations like moving cargo, operating ferries, or eventually entering the recreational market.
“We're moving now to more of a pilot assist autonomy, it'll be our next products that come out that really can work throughout the industry on almost any vessel type,” Johnson said.
The CEO cut his teeth as an engineer and then executive in the maritime and offshore drilling sectors before combining his expertise with a desire to work on a high-tech project.
“We’ve kind of broken new ground in bringing two big spaces together in venture capital and the maritime industry,” he said.
It’s not a crowded field yet, but Johnson welcomes competition.
“I hope that we see a lot of other companies emerging and doing similar things,” he said.
