Rekise Marine is a marine robotics startup building autonomous ships and submarines for naval and commercial missions. Rekise has raised $9.7 million in seed funding to move into the next phase of development. The company will focus on trials, integration, and scaling its technology.
Maritime autonomy remains a difficult challenge. Reliable systems must combine software, sensors, ship design, and changing sea conditions.
Founded in 2017 by Maitrai Maka and Shekhar, Rekise plans to use the funding to complete and sea-test Jalkapi. The company will also strengthen its in-house autonomy stack and expand its engineering team across robotics, AI/ML, embedded systems, systems integration, and naval architecture.
What does Rekise Marine’s autonomy platform actually do?
At a basic level, Rekise Marine builds both the software brain and the vessel around it. Its platform is meant to work across very different classes of craft — from a man-portable autonomous underwater vehicle to an extra-large autonomous submarine — so the same autonomy layer can be reused with limited rework instead of starting from scratch for every new hull. A Bharat Innovates profile describes that core as a sovereign AI autonomy stack aimed at Indian Navy ISR and maritime defence operations.
That matters because Rekise isn’t pitching a single drone. It’s pitching a family of autonomous maritime systems. Jalkapi, the flagship program, sits at the heavy end: an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle under the Indian Navy’s iDEX ADITI challenge. Company material tied to a hiring post describes it as an unmanned submarine weighing more than 20 tons, built for missions of 5,000+ km and 30+ days of autonomous endurance. That's a very different engineering problem from a small survey craft.
On the surface side, the product story is easier to picture. Swadheen is a 5 m electric autonomous surface vessel developed with GRSE for jobs like bathymetric surveying, mine-hunting, and explosive ordnance disposal. Jaldoot is far smaller, but it has a more specific role: helping communication between underwater vessels and a mother ship or shore station. Together, those examples show how Rekise is trying to own the autonomy layer across missions, not just sell one-off hardware.
For a customer, that changes the workflow. Instead of buying a foreign platform and then stitching together controls, sensors, and mission logic from multiple vendors, the pitch is more integrated: Rekise designs the vessel and writes the autonomy software. It also works with shipyards such as Goa Shipyard Limited and GRSE Limited to build and integrate the system. Execution still won't be easy.
Who founded this marine robotics startup, and why now?
The founding story
Rekise Marine was started in 2017 by Maitrai Maka and Shekhar. Maka has described himself as a naval architect who founded the company on the belief that autonomy would reshape maritime operations. That's a pretty clean origin story: not “AI for everything,” but autonomy for a sector where human crews, endurance limits, and operating risk are all expensive constraints.
Why the founders fit the job
Maka’s background lines up with the product. He studied at IIT Kharagpur from 2013 to 2017 and led Team AUV there, which is exactly the sort of student engineering experience you’d expect from someone who later chose underwater robotics instead of generic software. Shekhar Mital, identified by Rekise as co-founder and managing director, brings something different: senior naval credibility, shipyard familiarity, and defence relationships that matter when you’re selling into long-cycle government programs.
That pairing is a big part of why Rekise looks credible. One founder is rooted in naval architecture and underwater systems. The other comes with operational and institutional defence experience. In a category like this, that mix matters.
Early execution and traction
Rekise isn’t starting from a slide deck. Its portfolio already spans both surface and subsurface systems. Jaldoot has been delivered to customers. Swadheen has already gone through fully autonomous open-sea trials. A man-portable autonomous underwater vehicle is still in trials. Jalkapi, meanwhile, is the big bet — the one that could define whether Rekise becomes a real defence hardware company or just an ambitious prototype shop.
Funding details and where the money goes
The new round is a $9.7 million seed co-led by Accel and NKSquared, with participation from Sameer Brij Verma, Sandeep Singhal, Industrial47, Singularity AMC, the founders, and several family offices. Before this, Rekise had already raised $4.72 million from Singularity AMC and other backers. The fresh capital is earmarked for Jalkapi sea trials, deeper in-house autonomy software work, and aggressive engineering hiring.
Competition and how Rekise is positioning itself
India already has a few serious names in maritime robotics, but they’re not all attacking the same problem. Planys is stronger in underwater inspection and non-destructive testing, with a robotics stack built around defect analytics, sonar, laser measurement, and reporting tools. EyeROV focuses on underwater and surface ROVs for inspection, surveys, and research. Sagar Defence has gone harder on unmanned surface vehicles and persistent ocean-data missions. Coratia is building underwater robotics for mapping, inspection, and naval work, and has already landed a ₹66 crore Indian Navy contract.
Rekise is trying to span more of the stack and more of the mission set. It builds surface and subsurface platforms and writes the autonomy software in-house. It also works with established shipyards instead of stopping at a small robotic payload or inspection tool. Investors are backing the idea that India will need domestic primes for autonomous maritime systems, not just component vendors. That’s a bigger swing. It’s also a riskier one.
Why are Accel and NKSquared backing Rekise Marine?
This round matters because Rekise is entering the expensive part of the build cycle. Software demos are cheap compared with sea trials. Once a company starts taking large autonomous vessels into open water, every design flaw gets more expensive, every delay hurts more, and every integration issue shows up fast. That's why fresh capital at this stage is useful.
There’s also a strategy signal here. Accel doesn’t usually show up just to fund a science project, and NKSquared — Nikhil Kamath’s investment firm — adds a broader vote of confidence that defence hardware in India can produce venture-scale outcomes if the underlying platform is hard enough to copy. Rekise’s use-of-funds plan backs that up: software depth, systems engineering, and naval architecture, not just sales hiring.
Jalkapi is the real tell. If Rekise can complete development and meaningful sea trials on an extra-large underwater vehicle while continuing to ship smaller operational craft, it won’t just look like another deeptech startup. It’ll start to look like a domestic autonomous naval systems company.
How big is the marine robotics market getting?
The macro tailwind is real. Grand View Research valued the global autonomous ships market at $6.04 billion in 2023 and projects it to reach $13.41 billion by 2030, a 13.5% CAGR. BCC Research separately pegged the global autonomous underwater vehicle market at $2.4 billion in 2025, with a projected 16.7% CAGR from there. Those are big numbers. The more important point is what’s driving them: defence demand, offshore inspection, ocean data collection, and a steady push toward more autonomous maritime operations.
India has its own timing advantage. Naval modernization, domestic procurement pressure, and partnerships around autonomous and greener vessels are pulling more attention toward indigenous maritime systems. That doesn’t guarantee winners. It does mean startups like Rekise are showing up at a moment when the buyer, the policy environment, and the technical need are finally lining up.
Final take on Rekise Marine’s next phase
A marine robotics startup raising venture money for autonomous submarines sounds flashy. The hard part starts after the headline. Rekise now has to prove that its autonomy stack can survive the messiness of real deployment, and that Jalkapi can move from promise to performance. The sea trials matter most.
Read how Orbio AI raised a $21M Series A led by Dawn Capital to build AI agents that automate recruiting, onboarding, and workforce support for large employers with frontline teams.
FAQ
- What funding did Rekise Marine raise? Rekise Marine raised $9.7 million in a seed round co-led by Accel and NKSquared in June 2026. The round also included Sameer Brij Verma, Sandeep Singhal, Industrial47, Singularity AMC, the founders, and family offices, and it followed an earlier $4.72 million raise.
- What does Rekise Marine actually build? Rekise builds autonomous maritime systems — both surface vessels and underwater vehicles — along with the in-house autonomy software that runs them. Its lineup includes Jaldoot, Swadheen, a man-portable AUV, and Jalkapi, an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle for the Indian Navy that has been described as capable of 5,000+ km missions and 30+ days of endurance.
- Who founded Rekise Marine? Rekise was founded in 2017 by Maitrai Maka and Shekhar. Maka is a naval architect from IIT Kharagpur who led Team AUV there, while Shekhar Mital is a retired Rear Admiral who serves as co-founder and managing director — a pairing that gives the company both technical depth and defence-domain access.
- Is Rekise Marine a defence tech company or a commercial marine robotics company? It’s both, but defence is clearly the sharper edge right now. Rekise says its platforms are designed for naval, coast guard, and commercial maritime missions, and its current positioning centers on autonomous surface and underwater systems for ISR, survey, communication support, and maritime defence operations.
