You know what’s better than a drone boat? A big ol’ drone boat with some BFMs (big f*cking missiles) strapped on board.
Luckily, the dudes (and dudettes) over at STARK have taken this lesson to heart.
This morning, the European defense tech darling unveiled a new 12 m variant of its Vanta USV (yes, they make boats, in case you missed it) equipped with “surveillance, jammers, loitering munitions and MBDA’s ship-busting missile Sea Venom.” Fittingly, it’s called Vanta-12.
- Sea Venom is already in service with the Royal Navy on their Wildcat helicopters.
- According to the company, these bad boys can take out larger maritime targets, including warships, as well as coastal and land-based targets.
And it’s not just a render: STARK says the vessel’s “full capabilities have been put through their paces at REPMUS” in Portugal last week, and that it “[took] part in simulated combat missions, and [proved] its ability to work alongside conventional vessels and other USVs.”
“Vanta 12 is the first unmanned vessel to bring together missiles, loitering munitions and surveillance to help NATO countries face down the threat,” STARK UK MD Mike Armstrong said in a statement. “Vanta is an export success story for British defence, giving our NATO allies capability that can be produced at scale, deployed rapidly and adapted quickly.”
Up in the air: Now, STARK didn’t kick things off with boats.
- As a refresher—the company was founded in Germany back in 2024 (as a kinda spin-out from Quantum Systems) and initially focused on drones of the aerial, strike-y variety.
- They’ve got a few different systems, including their flagship long-range VTOL loitering munition called Virtus, a tube-launched loitering munition called Cascade, and a quadcopter called Gambit.
- And they’ve raised, like, a heck ton of money—in June, they raised a €500M ($567M) funding round at a €3.5B ($3.97B) valuation, bringing total funding to over $670M, according to PitchBook data.
Jump in, the water’s fine: The company first dipped its toe into the maritime domain (sorry) about a year ago during REPMUS 2025.
- Their USV family is called Vanta—the OG version was Vanta-4 (4 m), and there’s also Vanta-6 (6 m). Initially, they were designed primarily for ISR, but can also be configured for the whole attack-and-go-boom side of things.
- STARK says it delivered a Vanta-6 to the German Bundeswehr’s Cyber and Information Domain Service Command (CIR) in August, primarily for maritime awareness and surveillance. The vessel’s name is Seetaube, which (roughly) means “Sea Dove.” Cute.
Heavy hitter: Vanta-12 is, like, way more hardcore in terms of attack. Here’s what it’s packing:
- According to STARK, the UK-built USV is capable of carrying out 1,200-mile patrols and can “sprint” at speeds of up to 40+ knots.
- They also say it can operate continuously at sea for “weeks,” and can cover areas “such as the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, Baltic Sea, and European territorial waters.”
- The company says the boat is “AI-enabled” and can autonomously patrol, detect, and (with approval) strike targets like shadow-fleet vessels.
- It seems a particular focus for the company (and Vanta-12) is countering all those particularly annoying “hybrid warfare” threats, like mystery vessels cutting undersea cables.
Go boom: Now, the inclusion of Sea Venom here is interesting. It’s actually (originally) designed to be an air-launched anti-ship missile, but MBDA is tweaking the platform to be surface-launched from Vanta.
- The missile is MBDA’s lightweight, (originally) helicopter-launched anti-ship missile, built jointly for the UK and France.
- It can carry a 30kg warhead and travel at high-subsonic speeds.
- It’s also got an imaging infrared seeker and two-way datalink. Sea Venom can operate autonomously, but an operator can also see seeker imagery and retarget it, change the precise aim point, or abort the strike in-flight. That’s handy when things are cluttered in, say, the super-jammed far North.
“This collaboration with Stark has showcased a potent new capability that is made possible through the integration of a precision weapon system such as Sea Venom onto autonomous maritime platforms such as Vanta-12,” MBDA’s Andrew Blackburn said in a statement. “[Now,] MBDA is developing a surface-launched variant of Sea Venom to meet the growing demand for precision maritime strike in complex littoral environments, to both deter and defeat a wide range of threats.”
