Robin Dechant
9.6K posts
@robindchnt
i'm interested in technology, our physical world and running. partner @generalcatalyst, prev. founder @getkwest sold to @krakentech_ and @pointninecap
There's a different kind of robotics being built right now, and it's not on land. While everyone debates humanoid timelines, an entire category is getting massively funded underwater. Just look at the last 12 months: 1/ @saronic raised $1.75B Series D at $9.25B valuation from Kleiner Perkins, with $200M in revenue in 2025. 2/ @anduril's Ghost Shark went from prototype to US Navy Program of Record in 3 years. They've also won a $1.7B contract with the Royal Australian Navy on top of that. 3/ @vatnsystems raised $60M Series A from BVVC. Now the largest AUV manufacturer in the US, based in Rhode Island. 4/ @saildrone raised a $50M strategic investment from Lockheed Martin. Just launched Spectre, an anti-submarine USV with VLS strike capability. 5/ @UlyssesInc raised $46M Series A from a16z American Dynamism. Building "The Ocean Company" out of SF. 6/ @bedrockocean raised $25M Series A-2 from Primary & Northzone. Replacing fuel-hungry survey ships with AUV fleets for seafloor mapping. 7/ @bubblerobotics raised $5M pre-seed from Episode 1 & Asterion. Paris-based. Europe's first serious entry into underwater autonomy. The ocean is 71% of the planet. There's still a lot to explore & build.
Opportunity to join a robotics haz-ops monopoly from day 0 in SF and Boston. Hiring engineers with legged-robot experience based i. Founder is crazy, extremely technical and I vouch as a friend. Huge pre-seed led by General Catalyst. Demo at NATO. Dm if interested
Musely secures $360M from General Catalyst without giving up equity techcrunch.com/2026/05/01/mus…
You cannot buy a new gas turbine until 2030. Order books at GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi stretch to 2029. Turbine prices have nearly tripled since 2019. Every AI data center needs power and every gas plant needs a turbine. And every turbine has one part that bottlenecks the entire industry: The blade. It has to survive in gas 500°C above the melting point of the metal it's made from and spin at up to 20,000 RPM under 10,000 g of centrifugal force. Each blade is grown as a single crystal of nickel superalloy, pulled through a vacuum furnace at 3 mm per minute. A set of blades costs $600,000 and takes 90 weeks to grow. The same metallurgy powers modern jet engines. Only 3 companies on Earth can build one. China spent $42 billion trying to catch up. They bought a Russian fighter engine, took it apart, and copied every part. Their copy ran 30 hours between overhauls versus 400 for the original. Modern Western engines run 4,000. You can reverse engineer the shape of a turbine blade. You cannot reverse engineer 60 years of metallurgy.
