Ulysses
Low-cost autonomous underwater and surface vehicles for the world's most strategic and underserved domain.
The product
Ulysses builds networked fleets of small autonomous underwater and surface vehicles, anchored by the Mako AUV (~2m, 400 lb, 5,000 ft depth, 72-hour endurance) and the Kraken launch / recovery / recharge platform, with a larger Leviathan vessel slated for 2026. The systems pair modular swappable payloads with onboard compute that the company claims is roughly 40x denser than comparable medium-class vehicles, enabling autonomy on the edge for inspection, surveying, and contested-water operations. A base Mako sells for around $50,000 versus $1M-$20M for legacy primes, putting drones into commercial reach for the first time.
The thesis
Maritime autonomy is the next industrial frontier: the U.S. Navy needs cheap attritable undersea robots to outpace China and clear threats like Strait of Hormuz mines, and offshore energy / domain awareness markets have been gated by million-dollar legacy hardware. Ulysses moves the cost curve by an order of magnitude and bends the supply base back toward American builders, sitting squarely in the a16z American Dynamism thesis.
Evidence ledger
- website · 2026-04-28
Ulysses identifies as a reindustrialization company.
https://www.theoceancompany.com
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