Saronic brings in $55M for autonomous vessels

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A prototype of Saronic’s Spyglass autonomous vessel completing a full mission profile in its first open-water exercise with the US Navy. | Source: Saronic

Saronic, a maritime autonomy company focused on surface vessels, has brought in $55 million in Series A funding. With the funding, the company plans to accelerate research and development while also expanding its in-house manufacturing capacity for rapid production. 

Caffeinated Capital led the round, which also included participation from 8VC, US Innovative Technology Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Silent Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, Ensemble VC, and Cubit Capital. According to the company, this investment underscores Saronic’s commitment to addressing critical capability gaps at sea through attributable, autonomous platforms. 

“Saronic is one of the most timely and ambitious companies we have ever partnered with – its technology will fundamentally transform how the Navy operates over the next century,” Raymond Tonsing, founder and managing partner of Caffeinated Capital, said. “We have been astounded by the speed at which this exceptional team has already begun to bridge the technology gap in naval autonomy.”

Saronic is currently developing two autonomous vessels: Spyglass, a 6-foot vessel, and Cutlass, a 13-foot vessel. Each vessel is outfitted with remotely updated software and is capable of carrying diverse payloads in environments that lack communication and GPS capabilities. The company also plans on adding a third vessel to its product lineup called Corsair. Corsair is designed to satisfy highly urgent and impactful operational requirements for maritime autonomous systems. 

These vessels are designed to navigate marine environments and will enable real-time, collaborative, and autonomous mission-level decision-making. Because they’re engineered as attributable systems, the vessels offer minimal life-cycle costs and considerable potential for scalability. 

“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,” Dino Mavrookas, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said. “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.”