By Dave DeWalt, Founder and CEO, NightDragon
When Ukraine stood up to Russia, leveraging the power of technology and autonomous vehicles to upset a much larger adversary, the world took notice. Using unmanned vehicles across sea, air and land, Ukraine was able to thwart Russia in many ways leveraging lesser resources, including attacking oil refineries and going after the country’s Black Sea fleets.
We are seeing these autonomous tactics take place in other geo-political conflicts around the world, changing the nature of warfare as we know it. For instance, we are seeing autonomous devices, such as drones, leveraged in the ongoing China-Taiwan conflict in Asia, as well as in Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East. It’s clear across all these modern conflict examples that the future of war isn’t human driven, it’s autonomous.
We’ve seen incredible innovation from venture-backed companies building autonomous capabilities into defense systems addressing vectors across air, land, sub-sea, and sea. All of this innovation has driven some estimates to predict anywhere 60% or more of all vehicles will be autonomous by 2050 to augment, protect and scale human efforts.
NightDragon recognizes the immense innovation occurring around autonomous vehicles and vessels, as well as the criticality of the mission to secure our world for tomorrow. We also believe there is particular innovation and market opportunity around autonomous innovation for sea and naval vessels, due to market and budget dynamics, geopolitical shifts and a need to accelerate more cost-effective and scalable naval assets.
For this reason, we are excited to announce our investment in Saronic, a defense technology leader that designs and manufactures autonomous surface vessels (ASVs), that NightDragon believes help solve an urgent, critical challenge in national and global security. The funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from both new and existing investors, including 8VC, Caffeinated Capital, Elad Gil, and NightDragon, among others.
Saronic is redefining maritime superiority for the U.S. Navy and its allies by delivering the most effective and advanced ASVs at the speed and scale needed to meet the rapidly growing needs of the Joint Force. Saronic’s ASVs are designed to serve as a force multiplier for the existing Fleet, working alongside manned systems to allow naval forces to go extend their reach but also do more with less risk to life and mission.
Saronic creates three different vessels, Spyglass, Cutlass and Corsair to target different mission needs, depending on range and use case requirements. These vessels can operate autonomously and can be applied to a variety of use cases. They can perceive the environment, including leading intelligence, surveillance, or reconnaissance missions. They can also be leveraged for defense, such as defending ships and waterways. Vessels can also project power by extending the reach of a naval fleet or by deploying vessels in swarms to enhance the capabilities of the naval fleet without putting humans in harm’s way.
What makes Saronic unique is that it owns the entire hardware, software and mission control stack, giving operators the ability to coordinate more efficiently, effectively and continuously for critical missions. This compares to alternative approaches that require the integration of technologies from multiple software and hardware vendors, making it cumbersome and expensive to deploy. Saronic’s vertical integration also reduces supply chain issues, making Saronic more consistently able to deliver projects on time out of its 100,000 sq ft manufacturing site in Austin, Texas.
We also believe strongly in the Saronic team. CEO Dino Mavrookas is a former Navy SEAL who understands this problem intimately and the team includes leaders with expertise in technology, military, defense and more. Additionally, the investor base includes some of the best defense investors in the world who further validate this market opportunity.
In addition to capital, NightDragon will support Saronic with our operational, go-to-market and partnership expertise, as well as our deep government connections and federal sales experience. We will look to bring all this expertise to bear for the team to help drive additional growth.
NightDragon is passionate about this market because we believe there exists a massive market problem to be solved because of ongoing and evolving geopolitical tensions around the world. What’s more, we’re seeing U.S. naval superiority challenged on the seas, as slow ship building, legacy manufacturing techniques, and high costs are being challenged by a China who is drastically increasing its naval fleet. These factors, as well as others, have led to a significant market opportunity ahead.
We look forward to collaborating with the Saronic team and helping together to secure our world for tomorrow.
Read the full press release here.
To view the full NightDragon portfolio, visit our portfolio page.
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