VATN

Vatn Systems is a defense technology company that designs and manufactures autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs/UUVs) and supporting subsystems for the U.S. military, allied nations, research organizations, and commercial customers. Its vehicle line centers on the Skelmir S6, a 6-inch diameter, man-portable, swarm-capable UUV with a patented modularity system supporting kinetic, sensor and decoy payloads, and the Skelmir S12, a 12.75-inch diameter medium-class platform sized to the Mark 54 torpedo so it can be launched from conventional torpedo tubes and combine AUV endurance with lightweight-torpedo agility. Mission sets include mine countermeasures, ISR and surveillance, undersea payload delivery, passive acoustic monitoring, hydrographic survey, and effector-class tasks in contested waters.

Beyond vehicles, Vatn sells passive acoustic hydrophone arrays (Eyra 5.1, a rigid-mount array for unmanned platforms, and Eyra 8.0, a custom-geometry array) and a set of vehicle-agnostic software and hardware systems: INStinct, a configurable maritime inertial navigation system that scales from MEMS to fiber-optic gyroscopes and fuses multiple aiding sources such as DVLs to hold position when GNSS is jammed, spoofed or unavailable; Æsir for mission planning and sensor fusion; PARse, an embedded acoustic signal-processing engine; and FUSE, a multi-sensor tracking engine that localizes targets from distributed arrays. These systems are offered for integration into third-party UUVs, USVs and other autonomous maritime platforms as well as Vatn's own vehicles.

The company describes its architecture as modular and attritable, with payloads reconfigurable in under a minute, hand-launch, air-drop or ship-deployment options, low-bandwidth underwater communications for multi-vehicle coordination, and ATAK integration in its autonomy stack. Vatn operates a production facility in Bristol, Rhode Island with stated capacity of up to 2,000 units per year.

Founding story

Vatn was founded in 2023 by brothers Nelson and Freddie Mills, who grew up sailing and homeschooling aboard a modest sailboat in the Caribbean and helped their father improvise mechanical repairs, together with mechanical engineer Geoff Manchester and Dan Hendrix, a former special forces dive team officer. Nelson Mills began a PhD in international relations and political science before moving into technology, built software companies in Utah, developed electric boats at Pure Watercraft, consulted on hydrofoiling electric boats, earned an MBA and worked as an investor before connecting with Decisive Point and founding the company. The name "Vatn" is Old Norse/Icelandic for "water."

Business model

Vatn manufactures and sells autonomous underwater vehicles, hydrophone arrays and navigation/signal-processing subsystems to defense and government customers, with delivery contracts and international sales; subsystems such as INStinct are also offered OEM for integration into third-party platforms.

Revenue derives from contracts and product sales of vehicles, arrays, and navigation and acoustic systems to military, government, allied and commercial operators, including a first delivery contract signed in 2024 and a first international sale to Singapore's Defence Science and Technology Agency.

Traction

The company reports operational systems executing missions since 2023, deployment in DoD exercises, first customer deliveries in 2025, engagements with U.S. DoD, NATO partners and allied operators, deepening partnerships with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and a first international contract in Singapore. Headcount grew from roughly 15 engineers and operators in 2024 and 18 people in November 2024 to about 50 employees by December 2025, with production capacity of up to 2,000 units per year.

Latest developments

Following the December 2025 Series A, Vatn acquired Rhode Island acoustic sensing firm Crewless Marine in January 2026, adding torpedo acoustics, hydrophone manufacturing and signal-processing capability and bringing co-founders Steve Bordonaro and Philip Caspers on as chief engineer for systems and director of acoustics. In July 2026 the company launched an autonomous mine countermeasure system, and in August 2026 it signed an agreement with Taiwan's National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology to explore undersea autonomy for maritime defense.