The maritime intelligence gap: a critical vulnerability
The ocean covers 71% of Earth’s surface, yet we know more about the sky, air, and land than we do about what lies beneath the waves. Simply put, this is a massive knowledge gap and strategic vulnerability. Escalating maritime threats, from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf, demand real-time intelligence to answer the critical question: What’s out there? In an era of increasing autonomy and stealth, the U.S. and its allies cannot afford to be blind to the maritime domain. Legacy systems, like the Cold War-era SOSUS, are proven but outdated — utilizing analog systems and human capital to process vast amounts of data. There are literally people sitting in sonar shacks, listening and processing what is going on in the ocean all the time!
Building the future of maritime intelligence
At Andrenam, we’re building a distributed sensor network that provides persistent autonomous awareness at the surface and subsurface — and even the seabed. Our team of engineers from SpaceX, Anduril, Saronic, Arc, and ABL Space leverages passive sonar and machine learning (ML) to identify and track objects of interest using acoustic signals. Information will be fused across multiple nodes to create this intelligent network and decrease the cognitive load on operators. Here’s how it works:
- Monitoring: Andrenam uses low-cost, semi-attritable smart buoys to “listen” to everything going on in and on the water. We then locate and classify the sound sources for persistent and real-time maritime domain awareness.
- Edge-to-Cloud Processing: Advanced signal processing and edge computing minimize power consumption and enable efficient data streaming via satellite to ground stations or drones for real-time analysis and response.
- Interoperability: Our software integrates seamlessly with existing naval and commercial platforms, ensuring compatibility with drones, autonomous systems, and central command.
Unlike land- and air-based sensing, undersea environments are noisy and harsh. Our technical moat lies in overcoming these challenges with robust signal processing, low-power edge computing, and ML-driven insights. For example, we leverage commercial Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking data to auto-classify ship signatures today, with the potential to track vessels even if AIS is disabled during conflicts using sound signatures — critical for scenarios like a potential invasion of Taiwan.
From prototype to SBIR to new funding to fuel our mission
To capitalize on our momentum, we recently closed $10M in funding led by First Round Capital with participation from Also Capital, Long Journey, 201, Banter, Homebrew, Wavefunction and the Colorado School of Mines Venture Fund, to scale our team and ensure our production readiness meets market demand.
We’re currently at the first step of our three-stage roadmap to transform maritime intelligence:
- Pilot deployments and buildout of our ML algorithms: We are currently in this stage. Deployments are underway as we build core acoustic models to detect and track vessels anywhere at sea — spanning signal processing, machine learning, electronics, power, mechanics, and high-throughput, low-latency software.
- Scale and partner with customers: Working alongside our defense, public safety, and commercial design partners, we will continue to expand our acoustic sensing ML library and iterate our way to commercial-scale smart buoys and software.
- Blanket the ocean with buoys: Ultimately we aim to be ubiquitous throughout the world’s oceans, delivering critical insights and awareness for all mission-critical maritime needs.
The future of maritime power will lie in awareness and intelligence, not just force projection. With maritime conflict hotspots intensifying and autonomy on the rise, more data will be needed to effectively drive decisions and deliver effects.
We exist to secure the oceans — and we can’t do it without our team, partners, and supporters — together, we’ll ensure the ocean goes from a blind spot to a strategic advantage. Join us in an adventure into the deep.
