Things may be heating up on the maritime autonomy front stateside, but don’t sleep on our friends across the pond.
Yesterday, the UK Ministry of Defence awarded British unmanned surface vessel (USV) startup Kraken Technology Group a £12.3M ($16.5M) contract to supply the Royal Navy with 20 of its super speedy K3 Scout drone boats.
Go fast: Kraken’s roots are in building racing speed boats, but like everyone and their mother, they’ve taken a sharp pivot towards defense in the past few years. They have a few USVs on offer, but their most popular—and the one the Royal Navy is getting its hands on under this new contract—is the K3 Scout, which comes in three sizes:
- Medium: 8 meters long with a 600kg payload and a top speed of 55 knots (roughly 60mph). It can also operate at sea for 30 days at a time.
- Heavy: 12 meters long with a 2,000kg payload and a top speed of 55 knots.
- Max: 18.6 meters with a 10,000kg payload and a range of 2,000 nautical miles.
They also have the K4 Manta, a stealthy uncrewed surface-subsurface vehicle (USSV) built in partnership with L3Harris, and the K5 Kraken, a concept-stage 15-meter-long speedboat with optional crew and heavy weaponization payloads.
Busy bees: The £12.3M contract was awarded through the Royal Navy’s Project Beehive, a development program and competition designed to accelerate the service’s transition into a “hybrid fleet.”
- Under the contract, 20 of Kraken’s Scout USVs will join the Royal Navy’s Surface Flotilla (SURFLOT), which they’ll also support with training, tactical development, and continued experimentation and payload integration (go boom included).
- Kraken had to beat out 11 other companies in the Project Beehive competition, which drew bids from defense heavyweights like BAE Systems, L3Harris, and Kongsberg.
“The award of Project Beehive is a major validation of our maritime capabilities and our ability to enhance maritime defence through the introduction of disruptive technologies,” Kraken CEO Mal Crease said in a statement. “As the modern theatre evolves, Kraken will continue to iterate at pace in support of the UK and its allies.”
Pond hopping: Kraken isn’t only getting its feet wet on the other side of the pond. Last November, the startup secured a coveted $49M OTA with the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to develop and prototype “novel uncrewed surface and subsurface vessel technologies to enhance maritime capabilities for U.S. special operations forces.”
To support these contracts and growing demand, they’ve made some big moves to scale manufacturing, including a partnership with German shipbuilding giant NVL, a joint venture with Rheinmetall Naval Systems, and teased “further joint ventures/licensed manufacturing agreements in 2026” in their announcement.
And it sounds like the UK MoD is pretty hyped that one of their own homegrown startups is beating out the big dogs for these contracts.
“We are building the Royal Navy of the future right now in the face of threats seen around the world,” Luke Pollard, the UK’s Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, said. “This is innovative technology, developed by an exciting young British company, built right here in Britain, and delivered at pace to keep Britons safe.”
All about that sweet sovereignty, baby.