Say hi to BeeX! They’re a Singapore-based company making underwater inspections cheaper, safer, and faster through their hovering autonomous underwater vehicle (HAUV), called A.IKANBILIS. Now, they just topped up with $2M in a bridge round.

• Their HAUVs are suitable for inspection in wind farms, ports, maritime projects, and more. 
• Origin story. BeeX is a deeptech engineering spinoff from the National University of Singapore. 

Investor check. Earth Venture Capital and ShipsFocus Ventures led the round, while SEEDS Capital, NUS Technology Holdings, and Infinita VC also joined in!

• They raised money from a seed round last 2021.

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🫧 The ABCs of BeeX

Some underwater inspections are done by human divers, who need to have technical diving and inspection skills to review a site’s structure up close.

To get the full picture, teams typically need multiple dives and other surface vessels to collect comprehensive and high-quality data, which can take time.

But BeeX’s A.IKANBILIS claims that you can survey and inspect sites in just one dive!

• What does this mean? It’s quicker and safer—plus, teams get more time to actually analyze the data they’ve collected. 
• A.IKANBILIS enables you to get both 3D sonar and 2D visual confirmation of your site.

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🔎 More on their HAUVs

BeeX is powered by two 500Wh batteries, which provide up to 7 hours of work. It also has stable flight maneuvers with automatic stationkeeping so it can stay stable in strong currents. 

• Bye-bye, murkiness. Their real-time image enhancement techniques clear up camera images to give operators a clearer picture of the site. 
• Works even in low visibility? Yup, it’s capable of autonomously following the structure it identifies. Oh, and it also lights up when you need to go in the deep.

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📅 2024 goals

The fresh $$$ will be used to accelerate BeeX’s go-to-market for autonomous offshore wind farm inspections in Europe. 

• They want to launch their next HAUV, BETTA, in 2024, which will tackle offshore wind inspection.