Drone boat company Saronic is officially making the great, trans-Atlantic leap. This week, the 8VC-backed company—known for its ever-growing family of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and fat, fat valuation—announced that it’s officially opening an office in the UK and expanding operations in Australia.
London calling, indeed.
AUKUS-tastic: Saronic says it’s making the move as part of its commitment to pillar two of the AUKUS alliance between the US, Australia, and the UK—sharing advanced tech. The next phase of the company’s growth, it seems, will be selling its autonomous vessels to allies abroad.
As part of the expansion, they’ve named a few key leaders overseas:
- Matthew Tracey has been promoted to VP of international
- Paul Hollingshead will be the manager for UK and Europe
- Australian Navy Rear Admiral Lee Goddard (ret.) and UK Royal Navy Rear Admiral Alex Burton (ret.) will join as strategic advisors
Big boom: In the wake of a $600M funding round in February that pushed the company’s valuation to $4B, Saronic has made a slew of major announcements.
- They say they are building a massive, next-gen shipyard somewhere in the US called Port Alpha, though details are still a bit fuzzy.
- They announced a slew of new vessels: the 40-foot Mirage, the 60-foot Cipher, and the 150-foot Marauder.
- They snapped up Louisiana-based shipbuilder Gulf Craft back in April.
Make the leap: Saronic isn’t the only company making moves outside of the US. Since President Donald Trump came into office and essentially broke up with Europe, most of the major defense tech players have looked to expand their operations abroad. Bigger defense budgets (cough, Germany, cough) mean more opportunities to sell your tech.
- Anduril sent drones to Ukraine via the UK MoD back in March and is considering a UK manufacturing hub.
- Lockheed Martin is spiffing up its European operations as countries push to buy locally.
- NATO finally bought Palantir’s Maven Smart System.
The EU has just agreed to launch a €150B ($169.5B) loans-for-arms fund that allows countries to borrow from the bloc to buy new and advanced weapons systems. Limits on non-EU participation are strict, which means that US and other third-country companies will essentially have to bring significant portions of their business to the continent to participate.
The UK and the EU signed a defense agreement earlier this week that will give UK companies access to the funds.