Saronic wraps up $600M Series C round
An artist's rendering of the future Saronic shipyard being dubbed Port Alpha. Courtesy of Saronic.
By
Ross Wilkers
The autonomous vessel startup envisions itself as a main actor in the push to reinvigorate U.S. shipbuilding and sees its future Port Alpha shipyard as part of that.
Saronic Technologies, a three-year-old startup that makes autonomous surface vessels, has fetched approximately $600 million in Series C capital to support the build of what it calls a “next-generation shipyard.”
The company now touts a $4 billion valuation after the Series C round led by solo venture capitalist Elad Gil. Saronic said Tuesday that General Catalyst has joined as a new investor alongside these existing backers that will continue on: a16z, Caffeinated Capital and 8VC.
Currently dubbed “Port Alpha,” Saronic envisions the shipyard as a hub for manufacturing medium- and large-class autonomous ships. They would be part of a future hybrid military fleet that comprises manned and unmanned vessels.
For the Navy and industry alike, scaling up the ship- and submarine-building workforce has been a top issue and one that has gradually built up over years.
The Navy has also used unconventional methods to jumpstart its shipyard recruiting efforts, including a $980.7 million contract awarded in September to nonprofit BlueForge Alliance. Deloitte won a separate $2.4 billion job in June to work with both the Navy and Defense Department on addressing submarine industrial base challenges.
Austin, Texas-headquartered Saronic sees Port Alpha as helping to fill the gap in U.S. shipbuilding capacity by producing ASVs and their augmenting technologies at speed and scale.
“Port Alpha will reflect the apex of America’s shipbuilding past — generating new opportunities for the country’s shipbuilding workforce, forging public-private partnerships to accelerate growth, and bringing innovation and ingenuity to an essential industry,” Saronic’s chief executive Dino Mavrookas said in a release Tuesday. “We will bring these elements together with a single goal: to rapidly build a fleet of autonomous vessels in America that redefine maritime superiority and guarantees freedom of the seas for generations to come.”
With the Series C round’s closure, Saronic has fetched approximately $850 million in external capital since the company’s founding in 2022. That includes a $175 million Series B round completed in July to support the next phase of Saronic’s research-and-development efforts, plus its plans to further scale up production capabilities.
Saronic’s activities in 2024 also included its acquisition of an estimated 420,000-square-foot production and manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. The company has developed three unmanned vessels since its start and in October unveiled Corsair, the newest boat in that product line.
In January, Saronic hired 15-year technology sector veteran Patrick DePriest as chief financial officer to help oversee this new phase of its strategy. DePriest joins Saronic from Merlin Labs, where he was that aerospace startup's FO.
Below is a CNBC interview with Mavrookas on Saronic’s strategy and his views on shipbuilding.