Kraken Technology Group, the British maritime drone company, has closed a $175 million Series B funding round at a valuation of $1 billion, the company has announced.
The round was led by Digital Transformation Capital Partners and supported by other British and European backers including the British Business Bank, the NATO Innovation Fund, Rheinmetall, Inocea Group and venture firms HICO, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest and Hakluyt Capital. Earlier investors, including the NATO Innovation Fund, the UK’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund, SmartCap, Notion Capital and Speedinvest, have converted their earlier holdings to equity as part of the round.
According to the company, the funding will support continued development of its uncrewed surface vessels and payload capabilities while expanding localised manufacturing facilities internationally.
The raise follows what Kraken described as a strong year, during which it secured contracts from the Ministry of Defence, NATO European partners and US Special Operations Command, with its vessels now deployed in support of multiple ongoing conflicts, according to the company. Kraken said it holds manufacturing partnerships with Rheinmetall in Germany, Anduril Industries in the United States and Inocea’s Davie Shipbuilding in Canada, with further partnerships expected in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific regions.
Mal Crease, Founder and CEO of Kraken Technology Group, said: “Kraken is excited to be partnering with DTCP, leading such a prestigious group of European and international investors. This significant funding round will accelerate Kraken’s global roll-out, enabling the deployment of hardened, reliable, mission-ready capabilities for NATO and its worldwide partners at an unprecedented scale in the maritime domain.”
Ole Aguirre, Partner at DTCP, said: “The maritime domain is profoundly under-invested, and Kraken has taken a leading role in bringing affordable, mission-critical high-speed uncrewed vessels to the market in a very short time. Kraken genuinely understands the unique challenges around high-sea-state robotic operations and swiftly responded to NATO requirements, delivering immediate ‘mission-first’ maritime capabilities to secure our waters, our shores and our offshore installations.”
The funding lands days after Kraken’s K3 SCOUT vessel was airdropped from an A400M transport aircraft for the first time anywhere in the world, parachuted from 1,300 feet into waters up to Sea State 4 in Royal Navy-supported trials under Project Beehive, through which the service has procured 20 K3 SCOUTs as an early step towards its Hybrid Navy.
Founded in 2020 with roots in offshore powerboat racing and based at Fareham, Kraken produces a range including the K3 SCOUT, K5 KRAKEN and K7 SABRE surface vessels and the K4 MANTA surface and subsurface platform, with facilities the company says can each produce up to 1,000 units a year.
Well Is It £’s or $’s ? ….. 🫡
Yes
Right, lets not sell it to the yanks then please
lol. Well then the price is 950Bn but only for the rights to build 10000. The IP remains in the UK.
Either way a lot of dough.
I hope there be additional orders, 20 is just a token buy for trials.
Hope the company isn’t sold off as so often happens.
Thing is that MoD are going all in on drones.
I’m sceptical that drones can replace large ships but they certainly can augment them.
The risk is the UK is learning the wrong lessons from UKR as we won’t be fighting a clapped out Russia but a China equipped with both drones and very large surface vessels.
So am I, they only ever augment.
Whether HMG and HMT agree is doubtful.
These surely have plenty of roles where no larger vessel is needed.
They’ll need to diversify into long range USVs optimised more for payload than speed if they want to keep growing at their current rate.
The high speed types they have at the moment are great but don’t have much use except for coastal defence and aggressor training, whereas the really big money from a UK POV will be in Atlantic Bastion and the FADS USVs for which payload x endurance and endurance at speed respectively will be the priorities.
Mate… Give them a call and show them your CV, I can see you going a long way with all this new fangled Dronetrickery.
Maybe you can come up with a Drone Flying Boat
🫡
👌
They’re on my radar (😄) for trying to get a placement for next year, don’t worry. I’ll flip them an email if I can’t find anyone by pestering companies at Farnborough later this month.
Ooh, now that would be a project to get behind!
If you need a personal reference….. 😇
would like to see HMG take a golden share in this and many other strategically important companies. We cant keep losing them to the highest bidder, but we also dont want HMG to interfere in their running.
As long as HMG are a silent partner & only get involved if a takeover is imminent I would be happy. Perhaps with these SME’s as part of gaining access to government orders/funding they give up capital. If we are spending the money anyway lets try and get something out of it