Nautica Technologies Secures 4 Million Dollars in Seed Capital

(CONNECT) Nautica Technologies, a Zurich-based robotics company, has secured 4 million dollars in a seed funding round led by b2venture, according to an article by startupticker.ch. The company has developed HYDRA, an autonomous fleet of underwater robots controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) using the company's own AI OceanMind. The robots are designed to proactively clean ship hulls during port calls. This can prevent biofouling and thus increase the fuel efficiency of the ships and minimize the environmental impact.

Marine biofouling has a negative impact on the global efficiency of shipping to the tune of 65 billion Swiss francs and is therefore considered a major challenge in shipping. It occurs when algae, barnacles and other organisms accumulate on the hull. It leads to increased drag, reduced fuel efficiency and rising emissions. Nautica's technology is designed to solve the problem of mostly intermittent and labor-intensive hull maintenance. The robots can be used to proactively clean ship hulls with minimal infrastructure requirements and a wide range of possible applications. With the data collected during cleaning, the Hull Intelligence platform also creates digital twins that enable predictive maintenance and continuous monitoring. The technology has already been successfully tested on ships and in operation.

Nautica Technologies was founded by Cédric Portmann (CEO) and Mina Kamel (CTO), alumni of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne. The funds from the financing round will be used to drive forward the commercialization of the technology and enable its initial introduction in customer fleets. ce/nta