Every robot now needs a pitch deck. This week the pitch deck went to sea.
The US is testing autonomous vessels to hunt mines in the Gulf, and the press release calls the conflict an “opportunity.” Somewhere, a venture fund is already modeling the total addressable market for things that explode.
The boats are unmanned, which is the selling point. Nobody has to tell a family their son was aboard. The deck says nothing about what happens when the robot is wrong, because the robot has not been asked to present one.
Sea mines are the dream market. They sit still, they wait, and they never ask for a raise. Investors love a customer that never churns.
Is this a bubble? Technically no. Technically it is a naval testing program with a budget line.
The excerpt calls the work dangerous, which is accurate. Then it hands the danger to a hull with no crew, which is the first honest thing a startup has ever done.