Ulysses

• Founders:

  Akhil Voorakkara, Will O'Brien,Jamie Wedderburn, and Colm O'Brien​

• Founded:

  2023​

• HQ Base:

  San Francisco, CA​

• Company Size:

  2-10​ Employees

• Total Funding:

  $46M, Series A

Overview​

Ulysses is a San Francisco ocean robotics and technology company building low-cost, modular autonomous underwater vehicles, designed to explore, protect and restore the ocean. Currently in the market for scalable commercial subsea and defence operations. ​

Key Technology Insights​

Ulysses’ Mako is an underwater drone whose modules swap in minutes, reconfiguring for new missions. It carries an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU to run AI at the edge and works as both autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and tethered remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). At $50K, it undercuts $2–4M rivals. It is in production and in use by the US Navy; celestial navigation and aerial payloads remain in testing.​

Industry Application​

Adoption of the product is largely in the commercial subsea sector: offshore energy surveys, infrastructure inspection and seagrass restoration, across a dozen missions including the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Defence uses are newer, spanning mine countermeasures, ISR, counter-UUV and port security. ​

Strategic Perspective​

Ulysses is betting the underwater domain will see an aerospace-style cost shift. Its advantage lies in vertical integration and edge compute, making capable unmanned underwater vehicles cheap and scalable. Its opportunity spans commercial subsea and allied defence, with production the key test.​