AI boat maker Saronic smashes $9 billion valuation

Robot shipbuilder Saronic raised nearly $2 billion to expand production and develop new vessels as the Navy seeks refined options for medium unmanned surface vessels. 

“We’re going to continue to scale and build out our shipyard in Franklin, Louisiana, and then we’re going to invest heavily into Port Alpha, which is going to reshape the entire shipbuilding industry,” said Saronic CEO Dino Mavrookas, referring to a manufacturing plant it is building at an undisclosed site.

The $1.75 billion Series D funding round, led by Kleiner Perkins, brings the Austin-based defense tech startup to a $9.25 billion valuation. The round also included several new-to-Saronic investors, such as Advent International and Bessemer Venture Partners, and existing investors.

Saronic plans to use the money to expand its Franklin shipyard, where it’s building a 180-foot autonomous vessel named Marauder, and to build Port Alpha.

The massive defense tech investment comes as drone boats have proven their usefulness in global conflicts, including Russia’s war on Ukraine and the joint U.S.-Israel war with Iran, and as the U.S. Navy makes strides to integrate autonomous surface vessels into the fleet.

Autonomous surface vessels are a booming market with a lot of players. The Navy recently changed its strategy for assessing and buying medium unmanned surface vessels, pivoting to a marketplace focused on existing mature technology that they can choose from at a later date. 

That marketplace format will be designed as a “regular and recurring competitive environment for robotic and autonomous technologies,” a Navy official told Defense One. 

This move puts more emphasis on companies’ ability to build and deliver robot boats quickly to meet demand. And the Navy’s medium unmanned surface vessel marketplace gives “vendors a chance to propose combinations of attributes that they can deliver” that “align with the Navy’s operational problems,” Bryan Clark, who leads the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told Defense One.

Speaking to reporters ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Mavrookas said the company is “going to invest in Port Alpha. We look forward to sharing the news and the details of that when that becomes available, but that’s going to be 10 [times] the capacity of our Franklin location.”

That mega-facility, which is still in the planning stages, is also expected to support building larger autonomous vessels for commercial and defense use. 

Saronic is in the process of adding about 300,000 square feet to its Franklin shipyard, to increase production to 20 vessels a year. That expansion is expected to finish this year, a Saronic spokesperson told Defense One. 

“Today, we’re focused on completing our Phase 1 expansion in Franklin, which is our existing $300 [million] investment into the shipyard. Demand continues to ramp from multiple customers for our MUSV fleet, and we will focus on meeting that need through continued investment and strategic expansion,” the company said.