Pelagon emerges from stealth bringing physical AI to critical maritime infrastructure - Seedcamp

The ocean is some of the most important infrastructure Europe has.
Almost all of the continent’s economic activity depends on it: global trade moves through its ports, subsea cables carry around 99% of international data traffic, and offshore energy sites supply a growing share of its power.
Despite this, the sea remains a blind spot for governments and private operators. Radio signals (GPS included) barely penetrate seawater, so sound is one of the few ways to sense and communicate underwater. In coastal waters, sound bounces off the surface and the seabed; in ports, constant noise and dense traffic make a threat hard to pick out.
Today Pelagon emerges from stealth and announces its inception round. We’re proud to back them, alongside Bpifrance, Elaia and Hexa, together with defence entrepreneurs, families from the European defence industry, and AI researchers from labs including FAIR and OpenAI.
For decades, underwater warfare meant chasing Russian and Chinese submarines across the world’s oceans, with anti-submarine warfare the preserve of a handful of navies. Over recent years, that picture has changed dramatically. Surface and underwater drones are now within reach of any state or armed group. Ports, naval bases, subsea cables and offshore energy sites are exposed, and sabotage and interference along cable routes, at landfalls and around installations is already commonplace. Protecting these sites from these threats requires a completely new generation of technology.
The conflict in Ukraine made this issue all the more critical. Aerial drones, from FPVs to Shaheds, changed the character of the war on land, and the same is now happening at sea. In December 2025, underwater drones operated by Ukraine’s SBU struck a Russian submarine moored inside the Novorossiysk naval base: a warship hit at its own home port by an uncrewed system. The lesson for anyone defending a harbour or a cable landing is about time. An underwater drone travelling at walking pace can leave only minutes between the first alarm and impact, and a defence has to detect, identify and respond inside that window.
Pelagon is built on the conviction that protecting what lies at sea takes detection and response working together. The company calls this interdiction. Its Interdiction Dome brings four parts into one system: PEARLS, a distributed sensor network; ORCA, an AI model that interprets underwater acoustic signals and adapts as conditions change; MARLIN, an underwater interceptor operated with human oversight; and Pelagon OS, the software that connects them. Pelagon designs the hardware itself and runs each protection zone as a managed service, deploying, operating and maintaining it with specialist maritime partners. Its customers are navies from European and Allied nations and civilian operators of ports, energy sites and subsea networks. The technology is already at sea. Pelagon began operations in early 2026; in May, ORCA’s first live trial in Sweden showed real-time detection, classification and mapping of uncrewed surface vessels, and since August the company has been commercially deployed in the Mediterranean.
Pelagon is led by co-founders and co-CEOs Gauthier Bouxin and Aymeric de Pontbriand, who bring a rare blend of sector and technical expertise. Gauthier served eight years as a French Navy officer, five of them aboard frigates, with deployments in the South China Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea, before four years advising defence organisations at McKinsey. Aymeric is an AI researcher and physicist who started out on inertial sensors at Safran, then founded Scortex, whose deep-learning inspection systems ran in more than 100 factories across three continents before its acquisition by TRIGO Group / Ardian.
“Underwater, physics decides everything. Sound bends, reflects and fades, and a model trained in one harbour can fail in the next. We are bringing recent advances in physical AI and top scientific talent to one of the hardest problems there is: seeing underwater. But we don’t stop at the model. We design the whole system, from sensor to interceptor, to reach the performance and iteration speed this mission demands,” said Aymeric de Pontbriand, co-founder, co-CEO and CTO of Pelagon.
“I first got to know Aymeric when he was building Scortex, and was already impressed by his ability to bring complex AI systems into real-world industrial environments. I’m particularly excited that we now have the opportunity to partner with him and Gauthier on Pelagon. Aymeric’s expertise in sensors and physical AI, together with Gauthier’s firsthand naval experience and deep relationships across the defence ecosystem, makes them a uniquely compelling founding team. We couldn’t be more convinced that we’ve backed the right team to build a European leader in this space.” said Sia Houchangnia, Partner at Seedcamp.
The new funding goes into growing the team and extending deployments, with further deployments in the Baltics and the Black Sea scheduled for 2026.
Pelagon is hiring across AI research, software, signal processing, sales and institutional relations. Check out their open roles here.
Seedcamp Investment Management LLP is a limited liability partnership incorporated in England and Wales with registered number OC391626 as authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority with FCA number 628313.