Boosted by defense and Starlink, Orca AI pulls in $72.5M for its autonomous shipping platform

The autonomous navigation market — where ships, guided by AI, steer themselves, resulting in fuel and time savings — is projected to sail past $11 billion by 2028. As a result, companies in this space are pushing on an open door. The latest is Orca AI, which closed a Series B funding round of $72.5 million led by Brighton Park Capital. Existing investors Ankona Capital and Hyperlink Ventures also participated. The London-based company has now raised over $111 million, including a $23 million funding round last year.

So what drove the new round? In a word: defense. 

Founded in 2018 by CEO Yarden Gross and CTO Dor Raviv, Orca AI applies AI-powered decision making and autonomous capabilities to ships based on a marine visual dataset of over 80 million nautical miles. By employing AI in navigation, it’s possible to significantly reduce collisions and allow crews to focus attention on other aspects of the voyage.

“The main business still is in the commercial sector. We already have collaborations and POCs,” Gross told TechCrunch. “But we see opportunities in defense coming from navies around the world around autonomy,”| he added, “where they want more cost-effective assets that can operate more efficiently with less human intervention. We’ve already signed the first contract in the defense field, deployed on a navy ship.”

Orca’s growth is also benefiting from the expansion of Starlink, which allows real-time data to be transmitted to Orca AI for mapping routes, traffic monitoring, and sharing critical information. 

“Starlink enables us to collect data at scale directly from the ship sensor. We see that as a huge opportunity,” Gross said.

The company claims that a 2024 analysis of Orca AI’s alerts system showed a 54% reduction in close encounter events leading to an average of $100,000 savings in fuel per vessel per year.

Other companies working on autonomous navigation at sea include Avikus (subsidiary of Hyundai HD) and Sea Machines.