Blue Water Autonomy Raises $50M Series A for Long-Range Autonomous Ships

Blue Water Autonomy, a Boston-based company specializing in autonomous shipbuilding for the U.S. Navy, has raised $50 million in a Series A funding round led by GV, increasing its total capital to $64 million. The company plans to build and deploy its first long-range, fully autonomous ship within the next year, leveraging a team that has quadrupled in size and completed on-water engineering tests. Blue Water Autonomy aims to address the urgent need for affordable, scalable unmanned surface vessels that can operate for months in open ocean, supporting maritime security and logistics missions. This effort aligns with Pentagon initiatives backed by $2.1 billion in Congressional funding to accelerate autonomous naval capabilities amid China's dominance in global shipbuilding and naval fleet expansion, which outpaces U.S. capacity by over 200 times. CEO Rylan Hamilton emphasized their focused strategy on perfecting a single platform class to ensure quality, speed to market, and reliability. The company also sees significant potential for these autonomous ships to transform commercial maritime industries by handling repetitive and hazardous tasks at sea.