Over the past year, venture backers have poured close to $3 billion into good-sized rounds for marine-related startups in sectors ranging from defense tech to clean energy, per Crunchbase data. Top areas for investment include autonomous sea vessels, water robots, electric watercraft and ocean data. A single company ' Saronic ' accounts for most of the past year's haul. The Austin-based startup, which develops autonomous sea vessels and counts the U.S. Navy as a key customer, secured $1.75 billion in Series D funding in March. The round, led by Kleiner Perkins, set a $9.25 billion valuation for 4-year-old Saronic, which is scaling at a fast clip. The company announced this summer that it plans to invest more than $3 billion to build a next-generation shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, focused on software-defined shipbuilding and autonomous maritime systems. China-based Seahi Robotics, a developer of marine robotics technology, was a distant second for equity fundraising. The 3-year-old...
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