We are excited to announce that Antares Ventures co-led a CA$2.8 million investment round in Open Ocean Robotics (OOR), a Canadian maritime robotics and AI company transforming ocean monitoring.

Traditionally, monitoring coastlines and open waters requires fixed assets on shore, satellites, crewed ships, or aircraft, which are expensive, labor-intensive, and polluting. OOR provides safe, affordable, sustainable, and scalable ocean monitoring solutions that are solar-powered. OOR’s uncrewed surface vehicles (USV) can operate at sea for several months, collecting data with a suite of sensors without producing GHG emissions, noise pollution, or risking oil spills.

We look forward to working with Julie Angus and our co-investors Spring Impact Capital, Katapult Ocean, Alacrity Canada and DTN Ventures LLC

Antares Ventures‘ investment thesis centered around the huge opportunity for OOR to support maritime monitoring in Southeast Asia, a region with close to 30,000 islands, a massive 173,000 km coastline, and 9 million square km sea surface, representing 30% of global maritime trade. At the same time, Southeast Asia has a fragile marine ecosystem. For example, the region is a core part of the Coral Triangle, which represents 75% of all coral species and 40% of all reef fish species worldwide.

Antares Ventures will support Open Ocean Robotics to expand across Southeast Asia, using Singapore is a basis. OOR’s participation in the PIER71™ accelerator organized by Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has been a great start for enhancing its connectivity with the region.

Read more about the investment round in here