Have any fun beach trips planned this summer? Vatn does, and it’s a long way from its home in Rhode Island.
This morning, the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) startup announced that it’s inked a deal with the Taiwanese government’s top military R&D center, the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), to collaborate on naval defense projects focused on the company’s Skelmir AUV.
According to Vatn CEO Nelson Mills, that agreement comes as the startup is “forming a subsidiary there right now” and expects to “start building actual operations in Taiwan” soon.
Bad neighbors: Take a quick look at a map—especially the roughly 81-mile patch of blue between Taiwan and its very large, not-so-friendly neighbor to the north-west—and you’ll get a sense of why the island nation (yeah, we said it, come at us) might want a bunch of sub-sea drones that can be used for a bunch of different missions.
Fortunately, that’s just what Vatn’s all about.
- The startup’s flagship AUV is called the Skelmir, which they have two variants of. The 6-inch diameter AUV (the S6) has a 10- 20 lb payload capacity, a range of 20 nautical miles, and a top speed of around 23 mph, and the heftier 12-inch diameter one (the S12) can carry a 250lb payload over 200 nautical miles and at speeds up to 34.5 mph.
- It’s designed to be configurable for a range of different missions, from one-way attack with a go-boom payload to ISR and, as of last month, mine-hunting and neutralization.
- They also built their own command-and-control software (which works with ATAK and other interfaces) and an in-house inertial navigation system (INS) for it.
- After Vatn’s $60M Series A late last year, Mills said that the company is ramping up production of both the S6 and S12 to 2,000 per year.
Speedy swimmers: That production capacity and multi-mission capability could be pretty useful in the Taiwan Strait, especially the S12. According to Vatn, that heftier variant is one of the focal points of the deal with NCSIST.
“Vatn was really founded with the idea of defending Taiwan, defending Ukraine, defending our allies in challenging parts of the world,” Mills told Tectonic. “Our AUVs are cheaper than really anything else in the market, so it enables you to buy enough to actually have a fleet and an effect. They’re able to actually intercept and defeat moving targets, get on station faster if they’re carrying sensors, and act as more realistic decoys.”
“We’re really focused on littoral combat too. The Taiwan Straits aren’t particularly deep, so it’s kind of a perfect fit, in terms of specs and everything, for the Taiwan use case,” he added. “Ultimately, if you have undersea superiority, you control the surface as well, and that’s the toolkit we give to the US and to our allies, and that’s why Taiwan’s interested in it.”
Team up: Under the agreement with NCSIST, Vatn and Taiwan’s defense R&D agency will work on co-developing AI-enabled C2 systems, fielding AUVs (especially the S12, which has enough range for a round-trip journey across the Taiwan Strait), and building a local supply chain for the AUVs.
“It’s a broad agreement that allows NCSIST and us to work together across all our product lines, and even potentially new future product lines, so that we can build things that really meet Taiwan’s needs,” Mills said. “What’s next is more concrete—contracts and programs that we can work on together—and this is step one.”
He added that localizing production in Taiwan is “definitely on the table,” whether through Vatn’s own subsidiary or a local partner. “Taiwan is a center of manufacturing in general, so it can also help us serve the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and other countries in the region with relatively locally made [AUVs].”
Sounds like Vatn’s gearing up to be on island time all the time.
