Saronic: Redefining Maritime Superiority

America’s industrial base has a long history of reinvention. When new technologies emerge, industries absorb them, and the companies that move fastest set the pace for decades. Shipbuilding was once a cornerstone of American industrial power, but our capability has been quietly atrophying for decades. Today, the U.S. represents just 0.1% of global shipbuilding capacity. Existing shipyards are struggling to maintain existing vessels, let alone build new ones at the pace required. The pace of demand has outstripped the industry’s ability to deliver. Meeting it will require shipbuilding to finally embrace the same advances in software, autonomy, and modern manufacturing that have transformed other sectors.

Saronic is doing exactly that. CEO Dino Mavrookas, an eleven-year Navy SEAL veteran, co-founded the company in 2022 with Rob Lehman, Doug Lambert, and Vibhav Altekar. The team combines decades of experience in defense with world-class engineering talent in hardware and autonomy. The company is vertically integrated across hardware, software, and AI, owning everything from vessel design to autonomy to manufacturing. The result is a technical foundation that compounds over time, enabling the company to move across vessel classes and mission sets faster than previously thought possible.

Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has called Saronic’s performance “exactly the kind of rapid prototyping, discipline scaling, and responsible stewardship we need,” adding that his intent is to make this “the standard, not the exception, for how innovative companies come to the Navy.” The praise is earned. Last year, Saronic secured a $392M production contract with the US Navy just three years after founding and is delivering ahead of schedule. Saronic acquired its Louisiana shipyard and unveiled its 180-ft autonomous ship model, Marauder, with the first hull completed in less than six months, and less than eight months after acquiring the facility. That pace of execution is now being applied to an even larger ambition. Port Alpha, Saronic’s next-generation greenfield shipyard, will dramatically expand American shipbuilding capacity, create thousands of jobs, and pioneer a new model for shipbuilding, not just in the United States, but globally and with technology at its core. Saronic is not just building vessels, it is rebuilding a core national capability.

We have deep conviction that the restoration of American shipbuilding will be one of the defining industrial stories of the next decade, and that autonomy and modern manufacturing will underpin it. No company is better positioned than Saronic to lead it. 

We’re proud to lead their Series D and partner with Dino, Rob, Doug, and Vibhav as they redefine maritime superiority.