seagrass-restoration
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Akhil Voorakkara Is Building the Ocean Company One Hard Lesson at a Time
The Ulysses co-founder began with a leaking seed-planting prototype, learned what salt water does to confidence, and returned with a broader plan for autonomous work at sea.
Ulysses
Ulysses is a San Francisco ocean-robotics company building low-cost, modular autonomous underwater vehicles that replace multimillion-dollar ships and human divers. Founded in 2023, it started by using robots to replant declining seagrass meadows 100x faster than volunteer divers, then extended the same modular platform to offshore wind surveys, subsea infrastructure inspection, and maritime security. Its flagship Mako AUV dives 5,000 feet for up to 72 hours and starts at roughly $50,000 - about 50x cheaper than legacy systems - and the company raised a $38M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz in April 2026.