Location: Boston, MA, USA

How we met: We met Sidney at a virtual event and had an intro call just as he was starting up. 

Propeller theme: Ocean Industrials

Propeller investment stage: Seed

Founder and CEO Sidney McLaurin combines his career experiences in venture capital and at hardware startup Lime with his master’s work in and passion for ocean innovation at Fleet Robotics. Combined with stellar technology from founder Rob Woods’ Harvard Microrobotics Lab and founder/CTO Michael Bell who has built technology in the ocean, Fleet has the right team to tackle hardware and automation in the maritime sector. Their timing is perfect as the sector seeks to innovate and automate its way toward more sustainable practices for fuel efficiency and invasive species prevention through routine hull maintenance.     

• Why we love the founders – Sidney, Michael, and Rob know how to build and have continuously impressed us with their ability to build more faster, with less. They’re strategic thinkers – seeing and understanding real customer needs, not just building tech for the sake of tech. 
• What’s novel about Fleet Robotics’ tech –  In a field of robotics platforms aimed at the maritime industry, Fleet stands out because their robots are the lowest cost first-of-a-kind we’ve seen AND have the ability to crawl into multiple mission applications. 
• Why we’re excited about this market – The maritime shipping sector is under immense pressure – fuel costs, rising regulations, emissions reductions, biosecurity breaches, lack of labor, rising labor costs… The opportunity in shipping alone is clear, present, and growing, but we see Fleet’s low cost robots also opening new applications for non-destructive testing in the growing blue economy.  
• How impactful Fleet could be – Routine cleaning of biofouling from ship hulls will immediately reduce drag and fuel use for the shipping sector, while preventing invasive species from being transported from port to port. At scale, these are meaningful emissions reductions for any vessel – fueled by bunker, biodiesel, or (especially) battery! No matter how we decarbonize, biofouling isn’t going away. If anything it’s getting worse, and it’s slowing us down our vessels down when the economy needs them to speed up!

Learn more about Fleet Robotics at https://www.fleetrobotics.ai/