Bedrock Ocean dredges up $25M to map the seafloor with robots

Bedrock Ocean, a startup focused on seafloor mapping, recently raised $25 million in a Series A-2 funding round led by Primary and Northzone, with participation from several other investors. The company has developed autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that can operate independently for up to 12 hours using lithium-ion batteries, mapping the ocean floor with sonar and magnetic sensors. Unlike traditional ship-based sonar mapping—which is costly, fuel-intensive, and disruptive to marine life—Bedrock’s AUVs operate closer to the seafloor, using less powerful and less harmful sonar frequencies. These vehicles can cover twice the area of a traditional mapping ship, and a single 40-foot vessel can deploy 10 to 12 AUVs simultaneously, significantly increasing mapping efficiency. Bedrock designs and builds its own AUVs, each costing under $1 million, and has developed proprietary software for vehicle operation and data processing. The AUVs store data locally and transmit it to the ship via Wi-Fi when surfacing; the ship then uses a Starlink antenna to upload data to the cloud for near real-time monitoring. Although the AUVs’ positioning accuracy (1-2 meters) is lower than that of ship-based surveys (sub-meter), this level of precision is sufficient for many applications such as offshore wind development, oil and gas exploration, and environmental assessments. The speed and quality of Bedrock’s mapping have also attracted interest from the U.S. Navy. Overall, Bedrock Ocean aims to replace traditional, costly ship-based seafloor mapping with a more efficient, less environmentally disruptive robotic solution.