navy-seal
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Joe Wolfel
Joe Wolfel is the co-founder and CEO of Terradepth, a Cedar Park, Texas company building an ocean data ecosystem that pairs autonomous underwater robots with a cloud platform to turn fragmented subsea readings into decision-ready intelligence for commercial and government customers. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former Navy SEAL, Wolfel started the company in 2018 with fellow SEAL Judson Kauffman after concluding that humanity's ignorance of the ocean was a solvable data problem. He frames Terradepth less as a robotics maker and more as an 'Ocean Operating System,' shifting the maritime industry from buying platforms to buying the intelligence those platforms generate.
Ross Hangebrauck
Ross Hangebrauck is a General Partner at BVVC (Bravo Victor Venture Capital), a seed-stage fund backing mission-first founders building technologies at the intersection of national security and commercial innovation. A former U.S. Navy SEAL turned entrepreneur, he co-founded Hover Inc. in 2011 — a platform that turns smartphone photos into 3D home models — raising $142M and reaching 12 million homes scanned. After six years as a startup CEO and a stint managing international VC operations at Almaz Capital, he joined BVVC to back companies operating across defense, autonomy, robotics, and advanced manufacturing. He brings a rare operator-to-investor arc: from deploying in operational theaters worldwide to architecting portfolio companies that he says must deliver 'integration, interoperability, and scalability.'