Rekise Marine raises USD 9.7 mn in funding led by Accel, Nikhil Kamath

New Delhi, Jun 12 (PTI) Rekise Marine, the Indian marine robotics company engaged in building autonomous ships and submarines, has raised USD 9.7 million (about Rs 92 crore) in seed funding led by Accel and NKSquared, entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath’s investment firm. The round also saw participation from Sameer Brij Verma and Sandeep Singhal, Industrial47 and Singularity AMC, a slew of prominent corporate leaders, alongside the company's founders and several family offices, according to a release. "Rekise Marine raises USD 9.7 million led by Accel and Nikhil Kamath to help build India’s autonomous naval fleet," it added. Founded by naval architect Maitrai Maka and created around the belief that autonomy would fundamentally reshape the maritime domain, Rekise develops autonomous surface and underwater vessels through a full-stack strategy that combines vessel design, systems integration and autonomy software developed in-house. Its software platform powers vessels of every class, from small man-portable vessels to extra-large submarines, allowing capabilities to be deployed across platforms with minimal reconfiguration. "Rekise builds and integrates its vessels in-house, working with India's premier shipyards, including Goa Shipyard Limited and GRSE Limited," the release said. The company plans to significantly expand its engineering organisation and is hiring across robotics, autonomy software, embedded systems, naval architecture, and sea operations. Rekise's portfolio, built to span surface and subsurface, includes Jaldoot, an autonomous surface vessel already delivered to customers; Swadheen, an autonomous survey vessel that has undergone fully autonomous open-sea trials; and a man-portable autonomous underwater vehicle currently in trials, being built in collaboration with GRSE and GSL shipyards, respectively. At the top of that stack is Jalkapi - roughly 11 metres, 20 tonnes, with a mission endurance of up to 45 days. "Rekise will use the capital to complete and sea-trial Jalkapi, deepen its in-house autonomy software, and significantly expand its engineering team across robotics, AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning), embedded systems, platform systems integration, naval architecture, and the crews that test and operate new platforms at sea," it added. PTI MBI MBI BAL BAL