Online Oceans secures seed to provide persistent maritime coverage via solar vessels
This article covers Online Oceans, a tech startup that has raised £4m in a seed funding round to scale manufacturing, support deployments and expand service to defence and commercial maritime markets. The funding aims to scale production and deployments to support navies, coastguards and commercial operators with persistent maritime surveillance and ocean data services.
Online Oceans, a tech startup building autonomous surface vessels and fleet software for defence and maritime security, has raised £4 million in a seed funding round to scale manufacturing, support deployments and expand its ability to serve rising demand across defence and commercial markets. The funding comes as governments and operators seek cheaper ways to deliver persistent maritime coverage and protect critical waters and subsea infrastructure.
Why it matters
Maritime security is becoming more urgent as states and operators face growing pressure to monitor strategic chokepoints, protect subsea cables and pipelines, and deter illicit activity. Traditional options — crewed vessels with high operating costs or single expensive autonomous platforms — make continuous coverage prohibitively expensive.
Online Oceans positions itself against that problem with a unit-cost and connectivity-first approach intended to enable dense fleets that can provide persistent rather than intermittent surveillance. If the economics hold up, that changes how navies, coastguards and commercial operators can schedule patrols, respond to incidents and monetise ocean data.
Inside the product
At the centre of Online Oceans’ offering is Scout, a compact solar-powered autonomous surface vessel engineered for long endurance and low unit cost, paired with Tether, a cloud-based command-and-control platform. Operators can task missions, monitor assets and access streaming data in real time, enabling a shift from occasional high-cost missions to continuous maritime coverage. The firm also expects recurring revenue from software and data services.
Founded in early 2025 by George Morton and Alistair Douglas, the team moved from first builds to a production ramp in just over a year. The business says it has won initial customers across defence, maritime domain awareness and ocean data markets, begun first data sales and sold out initial production slots ahead of planned commercial deliveries in April 2026.
Who are the investors?
The £4 million seed round was led by Seraphim Space, with participation from Peter Rive, Frank Thieser, Florian Seibel and Koro Capital. The capital will be used to scale manufacturing and support deployments as the company moves into commercial deliveries and expands sales of data services.
Maureen Haverty, Investor at Seraphim Space, said:
Online Oceans is building a category-defining company at the intersection of defence, maritime autonomy and data. The breakthrough here is not just a lower-cost vessel. It is a new coverage model: dense, persistent fleets that can monitor critical waters continuously rather than sporadically. What impressed us was not just the technical insight, but the speed of execution. In little over a year, the team has moved from founding to production ramp, early customer traction and first data sales. We believe they have the potential to build a global leader in this category.
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Founder perspective
George Morton, Co-founder and CEO, framed the company’s mission as a response to cost barriers in maritime monitoring. He said:
Persistent maritime coverage has been too expensive for too long. That has limited what governments and operators can actually see, protect and respond to at sea. We built Online Oceans to change that. This funding allows us to scale production and support customers who need a far more practical way to monitor critical waters, protect infrastructure and maintain awareness over long periods.
Morton’s comment underlines the commercial bet: that lower-cost hardware plus software and data services will open markets that were previously uneconomic for continuous monitoring.
The bigger picture
Online Oceans’ raise sits at the intersection of defence procurement trends and the wider commercialisation of maritime autonomy. Governments are increasingly open to contracting persistent, networked sensing rather than episodic deployments, and commercial operators — from cable owners to offshore energy firms — want better, cheaper situational awareness.
The company will need to demonstrate reliability, regulatory compliance and secure communications at scale to convert early orders into long-term contracts. If it succeeds, it could help mainstream a coverage model that shifts spending from fleets of crewed vessels to distributed, connected systems and datasets.
This deal also reflects growing interest from tech investors in maritime autonomy and adjacent defence applications across the UK and Europe, as startups seek to turn cheaper sensors and autonomous platforms into sustained commercial propositions.
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