Rekise Marine Raises $9.7 Mn in Round led by Accel

Other investors in this round include Sameer Brij Verma (formerly of Nexus Venture Partners), Sandeep Singhal (cofounder of WestBridge Capital), Industrial47, Singularity AMC, along with several founders, family offices, and the company’s own team.

The company will use this money to speed up the development of autonomous ships and submarines for the Indian Navy. It also plans to hire more engineers and support the testing and development of its underwater vehicle called Jalkapi, which is being built under the Indian Navy’s iDEX ADITI program.

Rekise Marine, based in Bengaluru, builds autonomous surface and underwater vehicles. The company works on everything from designing the vessels to integrating systems and developing the software that allows them to operate on their own.

The company was founded in 2017 by Maitrai Maka, who has more than 10 years of experience in marine robotics, along with Rear Admiral Shekhar Mital (Retd). He is a former senior leader in India’s shipbuilding and submarine design sector. In the company, he helps manage shipbuilding partnerships and oversees project operations.

"Naval power has historically been concentrated in a few large capital platforms. Ships and submarines are expensive, take years to build, and require highly trained crews," Maka said. "Navies around the world are now investing heavily in autonomous systems and moving towards smaller, fully unmanned platforms driven by autonomy and AI."

"Underwater remains one of the few places where platforms can stay hidden, especially as low-earth orbit satellites become more common. At the same time, operating autonomously at sea for weeks or months is one of the hardest engineering problems because the platform has to be completely self-sufficient," he said.

According to Maka, autonomous fleets can be deployed quickly and in large numbers compared to traditional naval systems. He explained that even if some units are lost, the mission can still succeed as long as enough of them complete the task.

He also said that autonomous maritime systems will become more important in the future as countries try to protect and control their own defence technologies.

The startup wants to combine India’s strong shipbuilding industry with global engineering talent to build advanced autonomous systems.

Rekise currently has four main products that are either in use or being tested. These include Jaldoot, an autonomous surface vessel already delivered to DRDO through GRSE, and Swadheen, an autonomous survey vessel that has completed sea trials in the Bay of Bengal.

Its underwater systems also include a small portable autonomous underwater vehicle used for mine detection missions, and Jalkapi, its main autonomous submarine, which is still being built. Testing for Jalkapi is expected to start later this year.

A key strength of Rekise is its shared software system, which can be used across many different types of vehicles—from small 50 kg underwater drones to large 20-ton autonomous submarines.

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