Insider Brief
- Swiss startup Bubble Robotics has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding to develop autonomous robotic systems for continuous underwater operations across offshore energy, infrastructure and maritime security.
- The round was co-led by Episode 1 Ventures and Asterion Ventures, with participation from Norrsken Evolve and Angel Invest, as the company builds resident subsea robots designed to operate for weeks or months without human intervention.
- Bubble aims to shift subsea work from episodic, vessel-based inspections to persistent monitoring using autonomous docking, navigation and digital twin generation to deliver continuous visibility into underwater assets and environments.
Swiss startup Bubble Robotics has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding to “build the ocean’s autonomous workforce.”
According to Bubble, the round was co-led by Episode 1 Ventures and Asterion Ventures, with participation from Norrsken Evolve and Angel Invest, following the company’s formation through Entrepreneurs First. The company is also backed by operators with experience across offshore energy, maritime and defense sectors.
“The ocean is one of the most critical and least automated frontiers of the 21st century,” the company wrote in its announcement. “It underpins offshore energy, critical infrastructure, carbon storage, and maritime security, yet underwater operations remain episodic, expensive, and dependent on vessels and crews that simply cannot scale to meet what’s coming.”
Bubble Robotics said it is targeting the ocean as a largely unautomated domain critical to offshore energy, infrastructure monitoring, carbon storage and maritime security. Today, most subsea operations rely on crewed vessels and intermittent deployments, limiting scalability and increasing costs.
The company is looking to shift subsea operations from episodic inspections to continuous monitoring by developing resident robotic systems designed to remain deployed at sea for extended periods, operating autonomously for weeks or months without human intervention.
“Similar to how satellite constellations enabled continuous Earth observation, we’re deploying resident robotic systems that can operate at sea for weeks to months without human intervention,” the company noted.
Its platform combines autonomous docking, persistent deployment and low-cost underwater navigation to generate continuous, high-resolution digital models of subsea assets and environments.
Bubble Robotics said the new funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand its engineering team across Europe and the U.S., and begin deploying its first systems in real-world conditions.
Image credit: Bubble Robotics
