Vatn Systems builds affordable, scalable autonomous underwater vehicles and hydrophone arrays for maritime defence and commercial use, with $76.5m raised and systems deployed in DoD exercises.
Vatn Systems, founded in 2023 and headquartered in Rhode Island, develops autonomous underwater vehicles and hydrophone arrays for maritime defence and commercial customers. The company has raised $76.5 million in funding, with backing from Trousdale Ventures, Geodesic Capital and others, and has scaled from its founding team to between 51 and 200 employees. Its systems have been deployed in multiple US Department of Defense exercises.
The product line is built around the Skelmir S6 and Skelmir S12 unmanned underwater vehicles: modular, swarm-capable platforms designed for GPS-denied navigation and maritime defence missions, with payloads that can be swapped without engineering support. Hydrophone arrays round out the offering, engineered for maritime defence and GPS-denied environments. The engineering approach favours manufacturability from the outset, using commercial off-the-shelf components where they suit and purpose-built systems where they matter.
Technical work spans autonomous and unmanned underwater vehicles, hydrophone arrays, GPS-denied navigation, swarm-capable architectures, modular payload systems and hardware design for manufacture. The company serves defence, research and commercial maritime verticals, and describes its mission as closing critical gaps in maritime defence capability. It was founded by a team led by Nelson Mills.
