AndrenaM is an AI-powered, distributed sonar network that is changing the way maritime surveillance is conducted, founded in 2024 by SpaceX alumni Matej Cernosek (CEO) and Alex Chu (CTO). With headquarters in Hawthorne, California, the firm has quickly become a leader in converting old sonar systems into intelligent, real-time acoustic detection systems. Their pitch? To eradicate the blind spots below the waves and ensure constant visibility in the maritime arena.
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Mending a Strategic Blind Spot
The ocean occupies 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface, but it is still greatly unmonitored relative to land, air, and space. The Cold War-era SOSUS arrays are an example of a traditional acoustic monitoring system, based on analog hardware platforms and manual analysis. Analysts still sit in sonar shacks with headphones, looking at a static display, trying to make sense of noisy streams of data. This outdated strategy is increasingly becoming a threat as geopolitical tensions are on the increase, whether it is in the South China Sea or the Persian Gulf.
AndrenaM comes in, and it provides a modern solution: persistent, scalable, and intelligent undersea awareness driven by AI.
Mission: Surface to Seabed Intelligence
The vision of AndrenaM is short yet revolutionary: to provide undersea intelligence at scale, everywhere. They use cheap, somewhat expendable sensor buoys, each serving as a microphone to hear underwater acoustics. The signal processing is carried out onboard to compute the edges, and the cloud infrastructure is used to merge the data over the network. The combination allows automated detection, tracking and classification of vessels and underwater threats, decreasing operator burden.
State-of-the-art Technology Scaled to Grow
1. Mass-Manufacturing Ready, Smart Hardware
AndrenaM develops sensor pods and buoy enclosures for mass production and attrition. Cost efficiency allows widespread use, making ocean-wide sensing economically viable.
2. AI-Enhanced Sonar
The platform combines cloud machine learning with edge signal processing. AI beamforming and classification deliver faster insights, even with limited bandwidth.
3. Seamless Integration
Designed for compatibility with unmanned and manned maritime platforms, naval C2 systems, and autonomous vehicles, ensuring data flows smoothly into workflows.
Fast Traction: 36-hour $10 Million Seed
AndrenaM raised a 10 million dollar seed round in June 2025 in 36 hours, led by First Round Capital, with Also Capital, Long Journey, Homebrew, and Colorado School of Mines Venture Fund also participating. This pace reflected robust investor confidence in their mission and initial technology momentum. The key backers were persuaded by pitch decks and live demos; one of the partners of First Round, Meka Asonye, even flew to Hawthorne to meet the team face to face.
The Team: Space to Sea
Cernosek and Chu attended the Colorado School of Mines and both majored in mechanical engineering. Cernosek has been instrumental to SpaceX, and Chu has expertise in robotics and software development. Since then, they have put together a team of eight experts, some of them veterans of SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Arc, Saronic, and ABL Space, to tackle the multi-disciplinary problem of deploying functional sonar systems.
The Process from Prototype to Deployment
The company is currently going through a three-step roadmap:
- Pilot Deployments: Live tests off the coast of California that verify acoustic models and edge-node performance.
- Scaling Partnerships: Defence, commercial and public safety collaborations to scale deployment and improve sensor performance.
- Worldwide Coverage: The ultimate dream is a global network of intelligent buoys providing 24-hour maritime surveillance.
Initial prototypes are already deployed, which impressed investors and strategic partners, in particular, in defense and port security applications.
Strategic Impact: Defence and Beyond
Although its goal is national security, namely assisting agencies in identifying sub-surface activities, illegal movement of vessels and stealthy threats, the data provided by AndrenaM can be used in wider commercial applications. Its possible uses are port security, fisheries protection, offshore infrastructure surveillance, and marine research.
AndrenaM democratises the maritime awareness that only big navies could enjoy by integrating AI-based detection with affordable hardware.
Growth and Future Roadmap of Teams
AndrenaM has funded the company and expects to expand its staff by twofold, focusing on software engineers and hardware developers. They have purchased a vessel to test prototypes and ML models at sea.
Some of the openings are senior engineers, test and operations engineers, mechanical engineers, and the heads of Navy business development. The team is a deep technical and domain experts in both defense and autonomy- the key to achieving responsible scale in deployments.
Informing Maritime Intelligence 2030
AndrenaM is transforming maritime security into proactive measures with scalable hardware, AI, and real deployments. Over the next five years, it plans more coastal deployments, stronger partnerships, and custom hardware to expand its reach. It aims to build a multistakeholder, ocean-wide intelligence network, enhancing global maritime safety.
In summary, AndrenaM ushers in a new era of affordable, smart, connected undersea awareness. With a skilled team, initial momentum, and ambitious goals, they’re turning oceans into intelligent, informed spaces.
