BeeX
Singapore developer and operator of hovering autonomous underwater drones (A.IKANBILIS, ALPHA, BETTA, CASPER) for offshore wind, ports and naval MCM.
BeeX Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore company that designs, builds, deploys and operates autonomous underwater drones for inspection and defence work. It was founded in 2018 by Grace Chia (CEO) and Goh Eng Wei (CTO), who met through Bumblebee, the autonomous underwater robotics club Chia founded at the National University of Singapore; the club's team won the Best New Entry award at the RoboSub competition in the United States in 2013. Before starting BeeX, Chia spent five years selling human-operated underwater vehicles, while Goh was a full-time combat officer. The company is headquartered at 38 Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2, Singapore, and lists further offices in London and Rostock, Germany.
BeeX positions its hovering autonomous underwater vehicles (HAUVs) as an alternative to work-class ROV campaigns that need large DP2 vessels and big offshore crews. The vehicles are optionally tethered and run with a multi-drone-to-operator ratio, and BeeX claims about 50 percent cost savings against a work-class ROV plus DP2 vessel campaign. The company reports seven drones operational worldwide, more than 18,000 hours in water and more than 700 deployments in Europe and Asia across commercial and defence work.
The fleet has four models. A.IKANBILIS is the flagship inspection drone: 60 kg, 89 x 81 x 43 cm, rated to 150 m, with a 1 kWh hot-swappable battery giving 2 to 8 hours of run time, 1.8 knots forward thrust and a seven-sensor perception and positioning suite. ALPHA is a lighter 53 kg, 100 m-rated version whose full support equipment fits in carry-on cases. BETTA, launched in June 2026, is a 300 kg inspection and light-intervention drone with a 12 kWh battery for 8 to 24 hours of operation, 3.5 knots forward thrust, IHO-grade positioning accuracy and the ability to carry heavy manipulator payloads. CASPER is a low-cost, expendable, defence-configured drone for autonomous mine countermeasures, with 4 knots forward thrust, 10 hours of endurance, a configurable 50 m depth rating and swarm capability. The Sambal software suite covers inspection planning, data capture, near-real-time anomaly snapshots and geo-referenced, timestamped reporting.
Commercial work centres on offshore wind, oil and gas, subsea cables and coastal infrastructure such as port structures, terminals and decks. Published projects include a pilot verifying autonomous surface and subsea platforms for wind farm operations and maintenance (2023), a Vattenfall report on marine life at its Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farm in the Netherlands, deployment at a German offshore wind farm in 2022, and a four-year partnership inspecting floating solar farms for EDP Renewables, which gave BeeX an innovation award in 2024. BeeX signed a strategic partnership with subsea electromagnetic sensor maker ELWAVE in 2024 and, in October 2026, a partnership with Blue Ecology Contractors for offshore ecology projects in the North Sea. In June 2026 it opened a live underwater drone test zone, the Autonomous Marine Foundry, at the Singapore Institute of Technology's Punggol campus.
On the defence side, BeeX announced a contract with Singapore's Ministry of Defence in October 2025, described as one of its largest projects, and the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) publicised a partnership with BeeX to deliver underwater capabilities for the Singapore Armed Forces. In August 2026 Copper Turtle announced a partnership to offer BeeX drones to naval forces in the UK and Europe. In October 2026 BeeX was named a winner of the Mine Countermeasures Modernization Prize Challenge run by the US Defense Innovation Unit and the US Navy, where its drones reacquired and neutralised bottom and moored mine targets from standoff over high-latency, low-bandwidth links. BeeX says it is now moving toward integration with the US Navy.
BeeX has been venture backed from the start. IMC Ventures made a seed investment in 2021, and a US$2 million round led by Earth Venture Capital and ShipsFocus Ventures followed in 2023. In June 2026 the company closed a US$7.7 million Series A led by Monk's Hill Ventures, with SEEDS Capital (SG Growth Capital), ShipsFocus, OCTAVE Capital and NUS Technology Holdings taking part. BeeX was also named to Granite Asia's NextGen Tech 30 class of 2026.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
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Contact BeeX
WEBSITE
https://www.beex.sg/HEADQUARTERS
Singapore
Company Facts
Founded
2018
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Asia-Pacific
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Early-Stage VC
Funding Total
-
