Blue Water Autonomy designs and builds highly producible, full-sized unmanned ships—about half a football field in length—capable of crossing the Pacific with months-long endurance while carrying significant Navy payloads. Its autonomous ship design fully integrates hardware, software, and AI to allow vessels to operate on the open ocean for extended periods. Since the April 2025 seed round the team has quadrupled in size, completed successful on-water engineering tests, and started acquiring long-lead material from more than 50 selected suppliers. The company recently opened a Washington, D.C. office and added shipbuilding veterans with a track record of delivering 30+ ships to the U.S. Navy and work on DARPA's NOMARS. With the new funding, Blue Water plans to build and deploy its first long-range, full-sized autonomous ship next year. Financially, the company has raised $64M to date ($14M seed in April 2025 plus the $50M Series A announced Aug. 26, 2025). Blue Water Autonomy is a Boston-based shipbuilding startup developing autonomous, captain-less naval ships and a full-stack autonomy suite. Founded in 2024 by former U.S. Navy members and leaders from Amazon Robotics and iRobot, the team says it developed concept ship designs in under a year. It is already salt-water testing a 100-ton autonomous test vessel just outside Boston. The company's core product combines autonomy software and ship design to operate naval vessels without onboard captains. Blue Water Autonomy raised a $14 million seed round to expand its engineering team and accelerate testing. The company positions itself to serve the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, and the wider maritime industry amid a surge in defense tech investment.

Total raised

$64M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Aug 2025