Page 27: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2019)

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AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS

Maritime Autonomy

Sea Machines gets a $10m investment injection

While there remains much debate as to what an autonomous future looks like in the maritime sector, one company,

Sea Machines, is helping to pace the ? eld with product development, partnerships and investment.

“THE LEVEL OF TRACTION THEY

HAVE FROM THE GLOBAL MARITIME

INDUSTRY IS A TELLTALE SIGN THAT

THE INDUSTRY IS THE NEXT FRON-

TIER FOR AUTONOMY” VIC SINGH, FOUNDING GENERAL

PARTNER, ENIAC VENTURES.

ea Machines Robotics an- team – the leading maritime and robot- From Brunswick Corp., a familiar existing technology in a more intuitive nounced last month that it had ics experts solving this industry’s most name in commercial and consumer mari- way. “Sea Machines has done a great job closed a $10 million Series critical issues, including labor, safety, time sectors, David Foulkes, chief tech- leveraging existing technology to create

A investment led by Accom- ef? ciency and cost,” said Vic Singh, nology of? cer, Brunswick Corp. simply new, robust commercial solutions,” said

S plice VC, with participation founding general partner, Eniac Ven- said: “To date, our participation and in- Johnson. “From consumer off the shelf from several corporate titans including tures. Eniac is an experienced investor in vestments are helping us to better under- (COTS) hardware components to an in-

Toyota AI Ventures; Brunswick Corp., a handful of autonomous robotics com- stand how we can make boating better dustry standard autonomy framework, through investment partner TechNexus panies across big GDP sectors agricul- and continue to evolve and differentiate the engineering team has used tried-

Venture Collaborative; Eniac Ventures, ture, logistics, manufacturing, and trans- our business.” and-tested tools as a solid foundation on

NextGen VP, and others. portation. Some examples in agriculture which to build a library of proprietary “This investment enables us to double include Iron Ox, a fully integrated au- Sea Machines on the Fast Track technology to form the core of all Sea down on our commitment to building ad- tonomous robotics farm for product, While maritime remains behind other Machines products. This approach has vanced command and control products and Vence, autonomous cattle ranching transport sectors in terms of autonomous allowed the team to develop quickly and that make the industry more capable, through virtual fencing. In the logistics adaptation, the gap is closing according focus on delivering robust solutions to productive and pro? table,” said Michael and manufacturing sector it is involved to Eniac. “Maritime is ripe for autono- customers.”

Gordon Johnson, founder and CEO, Sea in Ready Robotics, programmable ro- my given the spectrum of vessel types While there are a multitude of invest-

Machines. Sea Machines will ? rst use botics platform for manufacturing. In the - recreational, work boats, survey boats, ment opportunities to move autonomy the funds to develop additional features Transportation Eniac’s thesis is around security boats, water taxis and cargo forward in the maritime space, Singh to its recently launched SM series (the air, land, rail and sea, as in addition to ships,” said Singh. “Autonomy is new to was succinct in the attraction to Sea Ma- company’s ? rst line of autonomous- today’s Sea Machines investment this in- all transport spaces and maritime has its chines. “We looked at autonomy in air, command and remote-control products) cludes ISEE, autonomous trucking long own unique challenges and bene? ts of land and sea. We decided to invest in and is now developing and testing the haul and distribution center, and Xwing, autonomy. The technology requirements Sea Machines as our bet in autonomous world’s ? rst A.I.-powered situational autonomous aviation for eVTOLS, he- for autonomous maritime are not as deep maritime given the deep domain exper- awareness system for container ships licopters, small aircraft and ultimately as ground transport and the industry is tise of the team in maritime as well as aboard a Maersk new-build Winter Class general aviation. already starting to adopt. From a tech their deep operating sand technology ship. In addition to supporting these ini- “Sea Machines’ autonomous technol- perspective, maritime is earlier than expertise building and scaling full stack tiatives, the funds will also help to grow ogy and advanced perception systems ground but from an industry perspective AI + data + software _ hardware com- our network that will help to distribute can reduce costs, improve ef? ciency and its right on par.” panies,” said Singh. “When investing in these products around the world and will enhance safety in the multi-billion dollar The investment marks one of the larg- startups going after big GDP sectors, the provide the ? nancial backing Sea Ma- commercial shipping industry,” said Jim est venture rounds for a marine- and technology itself won’t be the only key chines requires to hire the talent that will Adler, founding managing director, Toy- maritime-focused technology company to success but rather a deep understand- take the company’s innovations to the ota AI Ventures. “This marks our ? rst and brings the total capital Sea Ma- ing of the industry and customer base is next level, said Johnson. investment in the maritime industry, and chines has raised to $12.5M. According what sets its apart and Sea Machines has “Eniac Ventures is excited to back we’re excited to embark on this journey to Johnson, a cornerstone of the compa- all of that DNA. They are the leader in

Michael Johnson and the Sea Machines with Sea Machines.” ny’s success to date is founded on using the space as evidenced by their traction.” www.marinelink.com 27

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