Online Oceans raises £4M for autonomous maritime fleets
Online Oceans is building low-cost autonomous surface vessels and fleet software for persistent maritime monitoring, where coverage is often limited by the cost of ships, crews and sparse patrol cycles.
Online Oceans raises £4M for autonomous maritime fleets
Online Oceans, a UK company building autonomous surface vessels and fleet software for maritime security, has raised £4 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Seraphim Space, with participation from Peter Rive, co-founder of SolarCity, Frank Thieser and Florian Seibel, founders of Quantum Systems, and Koro Capital. The company says the funding will be used to scale manufacturing, support deployments and expand service across defence and commercial maritime markets.
Scout is a compact solar-electric autonomous surface vessel designed for persistent monitoring. Tether is Online Oceans’ fleet command platform for managing missions, monitoring assets and accessing data.
Online Oceans was founded in early 2025 by George Morton and Alistair Douglas, and the company has moved from early builds to production ramp in little over a year. Morton brings maritime engineering and defence-adjacent operating experience, while Douglas leads command-and-control software and fleet systems.
Online Oceans targets persistent autonomous coverage around subsea infrastructure, borders, chokepoints, offshore assets and defence-relevant waters, where continuous crewed patrols can be expensive.
The company says it has already secured initial customers across defence, maritime domain awareness and ocean data, begun first data sales, and sold out the first few months of production ahead of commercial deliveries in April 2026.
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