Vatn Systems
"The ocean keeps her secrets. Vatn builds the systems to uncover and defend them."
Vatn Systems builds modular autonomous underwater vehicles and GPS-denied navigation systems for naval defense.
Vatn Systems is a U.S. maritime defense technology company, founded in 2023 and headquartered in Bristol, Rhode Island, that designs and manufactures autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs/UUVs), hydrophone sensor arrays and autonomy software for GPS-denied, contested maritime environments. The company was founded by Nelson Mills, Freddie Mills, Geoff Manchester (CTO) and Dan Hendrix, with a leadership team that also includes Freddie Mills as COO; several executives and board advisors come from the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy, FBI and national security backgrounds. Vatn's product line includes the Skelmir S6, a compact, man-portable, roughly 6-inch-diameter modular UUV built for rapid configuration and swarm deployment, and the Skelmir S12, a medium-class platform (also referred to as Torsk 12 in some materials) offering extended range and payload capacity. The company also produces the Eyra 5.1 and Eyra 8.0 hydrophone arrays for rigid-mount and mission-specific acoustic sensing on unmanned platforms, and a software stack comprising Aesir (mission planning and sensor fusion for contested environments), INStinct (a GPS-denied inertial navigation system), PARse (an acoustic signal processing engine) and FUSE (a multi-sensor tracking engine). In 2026 the company unveiled SIGURD, a compact autonomous system aimed at naval mine detection and neutralization. Vatn emphasizes manufacturability at scale, using commercial off-the-shelf components where practical while reserving custom engineering for mission-critical navigation and sensing subsystems, and its systems integrate with ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit) for battlefield situational awareness. The company states its systems have been deployed in U.S. Department of Defense exercises and have executed operational missions since 2023. Vatn has raised approximately $76.5 million across grant, seed and Series A funding from a group of investors that includes Lockheed Martin, Airbus, RTX and SAIC, along with NATO's DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) as a lead investor, positioning the company within the transatlantic defense-innovation ecosystem. Vatn serves U.S. and allied government customers, prime and defense contractors, research institutions and commercial maritime operators. As of mid-2026, the company has grown to an estimated 101-250 employees according to third-party data, up from roughly 15 full-time engineers and operators reported in 2024, reflecting rapid scaling tied to its defense contracts and funding.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
Skelmir S12 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
- Model: Skelmir S12
- Launch Year: 2025
Modular 12.75-inch AUV and lightweight torpedo platform deployable from submarines, surface ships, and aircraft for multi-mission naval operations.
Skelmir S6 Compact Underwater Effector
Compact modular autonomous underwater effector for close-range maritime and defense missions requiring a smaller form factor.
Skelmir S6
Compact, man-portable modular unmanned underwater vehicle built for swarm-capable, attritable distributed operations.
Skelmir S12
Medium-class modular autonomous underwater vehicle for extended-range ISR, survey and payload delivery, with GPS-denied navigation and swarm autonomy.
Eyra 5.1
Rigid-mount eight-hydrophone passive acoustic array with embedded PARse processing, optimized for uncrewed underwater platforms.
Eyra 8.0
Custom-geometry eight-hydrophone passive acoustic array with embedded PARse processing, built to customer specifications.
Aesir
Maritime sensor-fusion software that ingests multi-source detections into a shared, TAK-native operational picture.
INStinct
INStinct is Vatn's modular maritime inertial navigation system, scaling from MEMS to FOG sensors for GPS-denied ops.
PARse
Embedded acoustic signal-processing software converting raw time-series into detections via filtering, beamforming and angle estimation.
FUSE
Multi-sensor, multi-target tracking engine that fuses PARse detections from distributed arrays into geo-referenced target tracks.
S6
S6 is Vatn's man-portable, swarm-capable UUV, under 60 lb, with up to 20+ knot speed and about 6 hours of runtime.
S12
S12 is Vatn's 600 lb medium-class UUV offering up to 200 nm range and 200 lb payload for ISR and hydrographic survey.
Contact Vatn Systems
WEBSITE
https://www.vatn.comHEADQUARTERS
United States
Company Facts
Founded
2023
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
employees 100-500
Primary Region
North America
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Early-Stage VC
Funding Total
-
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vatn systems auv-torpedo manufacturing facility
