New Unmanned Segment, Maritime, is Quickly Growing
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Disclosures for Needham & Co., December 29, 2025

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The second installment of Needham & Co.'s "Unmanned Series" presents the key drivers and leading players fueling a "period of extraordinary growth" in the unmanned maritime segment, reported Analyst Austin Bohlig in a Dec. 29 industry update.

"We believe the unmanned ecosystem is entering a transformational supercycle as modern warfare evolves toward autonomous systems, which is being accelerated by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy and underpinned by record global defense spending," Bohlig wrote.

The Growth Catalysts

Bohlig presented the factors driving growth in the maritime domain. One is rapid advancements in technology that have emerged in the last couple of years, including autonomy, AI, computer vision, and computing. These dramatically decreased the cost and complexity of these unmanned maritime systems (UXS), which resulted in a new generation of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that are entirely autonomous and cost-effective. Also, the world witnessed Ukraine's effective use of unmanned maritime vessels against Russia's larger navy fleet.

Demand for this new wave of USVs and UUVs is increasing, fueled by escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific and China's historic shipbuilding dominance. The country accounts for 53% of global shipbuilding, compared to South Korea with 29%, Japan with 13% and the U.S. with only 0.1%, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Bohlig noted.

Spurred by U.S. President Donald Trump's April 2025 Executive Order to restore U.S. maritime dominance, the Department of War (DOW) is pursuing a new maritime strategy aggressively. It revolves around modular, attritable, and rapidly producible USVs and UUVs that can be fielded at scale much more quickly than traditional warships. Accordingly, the DOW already earmarked US$5 billion (US$5B) in funding for USVs and UUVs. The U.S. Navy's long-term unmanned strategy calls for a future 134-unit fleet comprising 78 USVs and 56 UUVs.

"As the Navy prioritizes rapid fielding of both attritable small UUVs and long-range extra-large UUVs (XLUUVs), we believe production capacity across the UUV ecosystem will accelerate meaningfully over the next two years to meet the DOW's growing demand for large volume undersea fleets," Bohlig wrote.

Increasing defense budgets around the globe are expected to boost demand for USVs and UUVs, too, wrote Bohlig. Specifically, Needham expects countries throughout the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East to boost their investment in autonomous maritime capabilities. Australia, for example, announced in September 2025 that it invested US$1.1B in private company Anduril Industries for it to develop and deliver the Ghost Shark XLUUV over the next five years.

Investment Opportunities

Bohlig discussed the various public and private companies that stand to benefit from the surge in funding. They include domestic shipbuilders, original equipment manufacturers, autonomy software providers, traditional maritime suppliers, maritime-as-a-service (MaaS) providers, and counter-unmanned maritime systems (C-UXS) providers.

There really is only one public unmanned maritime pure play, Kraken Robotics Inc. (PNG:TSX.V; KRKNF:OTCMKTS). Its stock trades at 10x, consistent with its unmanned aerial systems (UAS) peer group. Large defense primes have growing exposure to the theme, but only a modest portion of their revenue derives from this specific technology. Companies within the emerging supply chain, spanning propulsion systems, batteries, sensing, communications, and C-UXS solutions, have increased exposure. Two of these public players are Brunswick Corp. (BC:NYSE) and Garmin Ltd. (GRMN:NYSE). Plus, growth in the maritime segment has spurred new entrants, noted Bohlig, as well as substantial capital flows.

Shipbuilders

In the U.S., established companies include Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. (HII:NYSE), General Dynamics Corp. (GD:NYSE), and Hanwha Corp. (000880:KRX), all trading at materially lower multiples despite increasing exposure to unmanned naval programs, and private company Austal USA. The market opportunity extends to the hundreds of small, commercial-focused yards that are positioning themselves for the U.S. Navy's Modular Attack Surface Craft initiatives. Future U.S. shipbuilding will incorporate robotics, automation, and AI-enabled production workflows, noted the analyst. An example of this is the Navy's US$448 million (US$448M) contract for Palantir Technologies Inc.'s (PLTR:NASDAQ) AI-driven operating system, ShipOS.

OEMs

In the USV realm, Kraken and Red Cat Holdings Inc. (RCAT:NASDAQ); private companies Anduril, Saronic Technologies, HAVOCai, Blue Water Autonomy, Thunder Tiger Corp., Seasats, Sea Machines Robotics and BlackSea Technologies; among others, are developing scalable autonomous surface platforms.

As for UUVs, Kraken and Teledyne Technologies Inc. (TDY:NYSE); private companies Anduril, Helsing and VATN Systems; and others are producing small, medium and extra-large vessels designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), mine warfare and autonomous strike. Similarly, in software, private companies like Shield AI Inc. and HAVOCai are developing full-stack autonomy systems that can be integrated into third-party vessels.

"The long-term leaders will be the companies capable of producing cost-effective solutions at scale, while delivering advanced autonomy stacks that enable USVs and UUVs to operate in coordinated swarms and interoperate seamlessly with other unmanned systems," wrote Bohlig.

Component Suppliers

These companies supply propulsion systems; sensing, perception, and navigation; and communications, data links, and security. Component suppliers offering commercially available and cost-efficient technologies that can be integrated into USVs and UUVs rapidly will benefit most.

MaaS Providers

MaaS, a quickly growing area, allows customers to procure turnkey mission capabilities such as persistent ISR collection, subsea surveying, environmental monitoring, mine hunting, and logistics, on a subscription or per-mission basis. Companies offering these services to government and commercial customers include ThayerMahan, Saildrone Inc., and Ocean Infinity, all private.

"As unmanned fleets scale globally, we believe MaaS can become an increasingly attractive model for agencies seeking low-commitment, rapidly deployable, and cost-efficient unmanned capabilities," Bohlig wrote.

Counter-UXS Solutions Providers

Needham believes that several companies offering nonkinetic, or soft kill, solutions for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) could offer similar counter-UXS solutions. These companies include DroneShield Ltd. (DRO:ASX; DRSHF:OTC), CACI International Inc. (CACI:NYSE), Ondas Holdings Inc. (ONDS:NASDAQ), AeroVironment Inc. (AVAV:NASDAQ), Axon Enterprise Inc. (AXON:NASDAQ), and private companies, D-Fend Solutions and DZYNE Technologies LLC.

Needham believes the same applies to providers of kinetic, or hard kill, solutions for UAS. In addition to AeroVironment and Ondas, they include RTX Corp. (RTX:NYSE), Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT:NYSE), Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC:NYSE), L3Harris Technologies Inc. (LHX:NYSE) and Applied Energetics Inc. (AERG:OTCMKTS); private companies Anduril, Fortem Technologies Inc., Epirus Inc., and Allen Control Systems Inc.; and others.

M&A Likely to Ramp Up

As both legacy companies and the next generation of defense tech firms race to gain a foothold in the fast-emerging and expanding unmanned maritime space, Bohlig wrote, this likely will lead to accelerated industry mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and consolidation in the future. Needham believes the targets in the next wave of M&A will be today's emerging private defense tech companies.

"That said, these companies have likely grown to a scale that may make near-term acquisition by a traditional prime less feasible," the analyst wrote. "In turn, we expect many will ultimately test the public markets as demand visibility improves and the capital intensity of scaling production increases."

Bohlig listed in his report the Top 22 funded private technology companies in the unmanned maritime landscape. The three that raised the most capital are Anduril, US$6,188.5M in 15 rounds; Helsing, US$1,507.5M in five rounds; and Shield AI Inc., US$1,088.3M in 17 rounds.

UAS Peer Group Info

Bohlig pointed out that half of the UAS peer group is profitable, whereas the remainder is in high-growth, investment-heavy phases as they scale. As such, the most relevant valuation benchmark for the cohort is enterprise value:sales (EV:sales).

Throughout the group, valuations vary grossly, ranging from 2x–30x EV:sales and averaging about 10x based on 2026 estimates. Key component and subsystem suppliers, such as Unusual Machines Inc. (UMAC:NYSEAMERICAN), Next Vision Stabilized Systems Ltd. (NXSN:TAE), Amprius Technologies Inc. (AMPX:NYSE), Elsight Ltd. (ELS:ASX) and Mobilicom Ltd. (MOB:NASDAQ), tend to garner the highest multiples.

"Our unmanned group trades at a significant premium to traditional primes, reflecting higher growth expectations as the unmanned supercycle accelerates in 2026," Bohlig wrote.