Rekise Marine raises $9.7M in seed round led by Accel and Nikhil Kamath

Rekise Marine, the Bengaluru headquartered marine robotics startup has raised $9.7 million in a seed round of funding led by Accel and NKSquared, the investment firm of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.

This funding round also included participation from Sameer Brij Verma and Sandeep Singhal, Industrial47 and Singularity AMC, alongside the company's founders and several family offices.

Rekise Marine will use the capital to complete the sea-trial Jalkapi, its autonomous submarine, deepen its in-house autonomy software, expand its engineering team across robotics, AI/ML, embedded systems, platform systems integration and naval architecture.

Founded in 2017 naval architect Maitrai Maka, Rekise believes maritime power in the future will be built around low cost autonomous systems. This startup develops autonomous surface and underwater vessels through a full-stack approach that combines vessel design, systems integration and autonomy software developed in-house. Its software platform powers vessels of every class, from small man-portable vessels to extra-large submarines, allowing capabilities to be deployed across platforms with minimal reconfiguration.

Rekise builds and integrates its vessels in-house, working with India's premier shipyards, including Goa Shipyard Limited and GRSE Limited.

Maitrai Maka, Founder & CEO, and Rear Admiral Shekhar Mital (Retd), Co-founder & Executive Director, Rekise Marine, said, “At Rekise, we build autonomous ships and submarines, and at sea the autonomy is only as good as the sensors and hardware feeding it. That is why we design the vessel, its sensors and its software as one system, rather than bolting them together later. What makes that repeatable is the team we are building, more than either of us, and this round lets us grow it while putting Jalkapi in the water.”

The portfolio of products of Rekise include both surface and subsurface. Jaldoot is an autonomous surface vessel already delivered to customers, Swadheen, is an autonomous survey vessel that has undergone fully autonomous open-sea trials; and a man-portable autonomous underwater vehicle currently in trials. The premium product of Rekise is Jalkapi, an autonomous submarine for the Indian Navy.

Nikhil Kamath, Founder and Investor, NKSquared, said, “India has built its own warships and submarines for decades, and produces some of the world's best engineering talent. Maritime autonomy is the capability it now needs to own. We are excited to be backing a team that brings those strengths together, pairing deep naval systems engineering with autonomy as closely as anyone in the world, and building it to a global standard for India.”