Saildrone Closes $100 Million Series C Funding Round

Saildrone in mid-October announced the close of its $100 million Series C round, bringing its total funding to $190 million.

Led by BOND, the round includes new investors XN, Standard Investments, Emerson Collective and Crowley Maritime Corporation, as well as participation from previous investors, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Lux Capital, Social Capital and Tribe Capital. Saildrone said it will use the new financing to grow its data insight teams and scale go-to-market functions to meet the rapidly growing demand for ocean domain intelligence.

An American owned and operated company founded in 2012, Saildrone’s mission is to sustainably explore, map and monitor the ocean to understand, protect and preserve our world. Predominantly powered by renewable energy, Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicles (USV) have a minimal carbon footprint and are equipped with advanced sensors and embedded machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI) technology to deliver critical insights from any ocean, at any time of year.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Saildrone as they build out the future of maritime intelligence, drawing on their unique technological differentiation and expansive mission history to serve customers across diverse industries,” said Noah Knauf, general partner at BOND, who will join the company’s Board of Directors.

"We are honored to have the BOND team and our new investors join our journey,” said Richard Jenkins, Saildrone founder and CEO. “The combination of the most tried and tested autonomous ocean technology with the partnership of some of the most experienced venture capitalists in the world consolidates our industry leadership and enables our rapid growth path to meet the needs of our customers.”

“Crowley is proud to join Saildrone in advancing technology for gathering and analyzing climate, mapping and maritime security data for the benefit of our environment and communities,” said Tom Crowley, the company’s chairman and CEO. “Our investment advances Crowley’s strategy to develop growth in the next generation of industries that align innovation and value while leveraging renewable energy.”

“We are delighted to have Crowley join our team as a strategic investor,” Jenkins said. “Adding high utility ship capability, and a global marine service network to Saildrone operations is going to be transformational for our business.

“Likewise, there are many ML/AI technologies that we have evolved at Saildrone, that can be applied to regular vessel operations to help improve safety, such as through improved maritime domain awareness. We are looking forward to working together to accelerate these technologies.”