Venture capital firm IMC Ventures, along with CapVista, ShipsFocus-Quest Ventures (Maritime Fund), SEEDS Capital, and the National University of Singapore have all joined in a seed funding round for BeeX, a Singapore-based Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (HAUV) start-up.
With the new funds, BeeX will expand its software team to accelerate development of its autonomous capabilities across more diverse and critical environments, such as ports and vessels. Its hardware team will also commission a larger and more powerful HAUV suitable for harsher conditions in offshore wind, to service the growth in underwater infrastructure as the world adopts renewable energy to achieve lower carbon emissions.
Designed to conduct large-scale underwater inspections, BeeX’s self-thinking robots aim to reduce operations and maintenance costs for assets in the water, such as vessels, floating solar and offshore wind installations. The system also removes the element of safety risk in inspections at sea as there are no physical inspections to be conducted by divers.
“The best validation of BeeX’s solution is demonstrated through the demand for their product in the maritime industry,” said James Ong, IMC Ventures’ Investment Committee Member.
“The fact that BeeX has shown the commercial ability to sell their solutions on commercial terms validates that the technology works, and the pricing is viable. IMC hopes to help BeeX scale by utilising IMC’s broad network across Asia Pacific.”
