When we first invested in Saronic’s seed round, I didn’t ask a key question that would come to define the company. I finally asked it about 18 months later over lunch with founder and CEO Dino Mavrookas.
Why did you join the SEALs?
Dino didn’t have any family in the military. Growing up, he never dreamed of joining the Navy. But during his junior year of college, terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center. Several weeks later, like many young men and women across the country, he found himself at a recruiting center in a strip mall in New Jersey, asking pretty basic questions about how the military works. When the recruiter mentioned the Navy SEALs, he said, “That sounds cool.” A day later, he was on a beach at 7 am with a veteran who wanted to test his resolve in cold water.
“Dive in,” the man said during what was supposed to be an informational walk. Dino dove into the ocean and enlisted shortly after graduation.
That story may sound like a common one, especially for those of us who were in high school and college on September 11th. But here’s where Dino’s story is a little different: Dino enlisted. He didn’t go the officer route, even though he was a college graduate and qualified. When I asked him why he chose to enlist, he shared what I believe defines the culture and story of Saronic:
“If I had become an officer, it would have taken 18 months or more to get to BUD/S. By enlisting, I got there in three. The real reason is I didn’t want to wait.”
I didn’t want to wait.
Defense technology companies are used to waiting. They wait for requirements. Contract announcements. Congressional adds. Appropriations bills to pass. Phrases like “continuing resolution” feel like Groundhog Day, and the pace at which companies can move is hindered by a massive bureaucracy that doesn’t like change. It takes superhuman force and resolve to convince the Department of Defense to move fast, and to trust the instincts and abilities of young, patriotic teams that aren’t afraid to dive into rough waters.
Saronic doesn’t want to wait, and unsurprisingly, they haven’t. In fact, it’s among the fastest-moving companies across sectors that I’ve witnessed in my career. In less than two years, Saronic has turned unmanned surface vessels for maritime autonomy from theory to reality — with an extraordinary team of engineers from companies like Anduril, SpaceX, and Liquid Robotics — and met the requirements needed to build for the U.S. Navy.
Just last month, Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific command, spoke to Josh Rogin in The Washington Post about U.S. strategy to protect Taiwan against a potential invasion by China. Xi Jinping has called on China’s People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take Taiwan by force by 2027 or sooner, Rogin wrote. Admiral Paparo and our allies are tasked with ensuring it doesn’t happen, and deploying thousands of drones and unmanned surface vessels (or USVs) is crucial to ensuring a surprise attack through the Taiwan Strait can’t happen. Named “Hellscape,” the strategy of deploying these USVs, drones, and submarines will protect the Strait to give time for U.S. forces and our allies to respond.
“They want to offer the world a short, sharp war so that it is a fait accompli before the world can get their act together,” Paparo said in The Washington Post. “My job is to ensure that between now and 2027 and beyond, the U.S. military and the allies are capable of prevailing.”
It is rare to see such a young company bite off such an audacious technological challenge: one that requires ramping manufacturing, software, and autonomy capabilities simultaneously to ensure vessels and fleets are protected. It is also rare to see a team of unknown veterans and engineers come together with the technical knowledge and uncommon courage to serve a mission that is not on the periphery of what the Navy needs, but something so essential that leadership is clamoring for this technology in the op-ed pages of The Washington Post.
It’s also rare as an investor to know that the next two years of runway for a company isn’t just about hitting product market fit or meeting production challenges — 2027 is the latest we must be ready, not because the board said so, but because Xi Jinping has set our production timeline. The timing for Saronic isn’t just make or break for a company, but make or break for nations and the world. As Dino said after September 11th, we don’t have 18 months. We don’t have time to wait.
We’re proud to lead Saronic’s Series B and continue supporting Dino and his cofounders Vibhav Altekar, Rob Lehman, Doug Lambert, and this exemplary team of engineers, veterans, and operators as they dive into cold water every morning to build what the Navy and our allies need to protect the free world.
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