Saronic

Saronic has been awarded a production Other Transaction contract under the U.S. Navy's Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) Marketplace for Marauder, its 180-foot dual-use autonomous ship. The MUSV Marketplace is a Navy acquisition initiative designed to rapidly field unmanned surface vessels by drawing on mature, commercial-ready technology rather than a traditional multi-year program of record. The award follows an at-sea evaluation in which, over eight days of continuous, 24/7 operations, Marauder completed more than 140 test scenarios without failure , including autonomously tracking and maneuvering around a variety of vessels, as well as a battery of passive-perception tests in which Marauder was required to detect, track, and follow other vessels using only its passive onboard sensors, without reliance on active radar . The company, founded in 2022 and based in Austin, builds autonomous surface vessels for naval and maritime missions and is led by co-founders Dino Mavrookas (CEO), Vibhav Altekar, Doug Lambert, and Rob Lehman , with several of the founding team drawn from Navy and Marine Corps special operations backgrounds. CEO Mavrookas said Marauder went from initial design to on-the-water in under a year , and framed Saronic as a vertically integrated shipbuilder that designs autonomy, software, hardware, and the production process together. This launch matters because it moves Marauder from prototype into Navy-funded serial production, extending Saronic's footprint beyond its smaller Corsair platform. The award builds on Saronic's existing production contract with the US Navy for Corsair, its 24-foot autonomous surface vessel, and follows a separate Navy contract awarding Saronic the construction of Landing Craft Utility (LCU) vessels at Port Alpha, the company's next-generation shipyard in Brownsville, Texas. Taken together, the deals position Saronic as one of a small group of non-traditional suppliers now building both autonomous and manned hulls for the Navy at scale.