Buying guide
Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) vs SM300 / SM200 in 2026
Comparing 2 humanoid robots across availability, pricing, capabilities, and verified deployments. Current as of 2026.
| Attribute | No image on file | |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Saronic Technologies | Sea Machines Robotics |
| Form factor | maritime_surface | maritime_surface |
| Maturity | commercial | commercial |
| Autonomy | — | — |
| Availability | internal-onlyenterprise | internal-onlyenterprise |
| Price | Not announced | Not announced |
| Capability claims | — | — |
| Brain | — | — |
| Verified deployments | 1Huntington Beach | 1California |
| Privacy practices | — | — |
| Sources on file | 8 | 5 |
Editorial summaries
Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder)
Saronic Technologies (founded 2022 in Austin, Texas by Dino Mavrookas, an eleven-year Navy SEAL, with CTO Vibhav Altekar, an early Anduril engineer who worked on Ghost Shark) makes defense autonomous surface vessels and is the new-defense maritime archetype, extending the AI-first defense cohort of Anduril, Shield AI, and Helsing from the air into the surface-naval regime. Its production line is the 24-foot Corsair (1,000+ nm, 1,000 lb), the 52-foot Mirage (2,500+ nm, 3,500 lb), and the 180-foot Marauder medium uncrewed surface vessel, and it is building a 'Port Alpha' shipyard. Its funding ladder ran from a $175M Series B at a $1B valuation (2024) to a $600M Series C at $4B (February 2025) to a $1.75 billion Series D at a $9.25 billion valuation on March 31, 2026, led by Kleiner Perkins. DEPLOY records it at early commercial maturity on one real production-intent Navy contract with money obligated. A precise cap-flag on that contract: the often-cited $392 million figure is a Navy other-transaction-authority ceiling through 2031 with about $197 million obligated in July 2025, and the Navy did not name a vessel. As defense procurement, there is no consumer price.
SM300 / SM200
Sea Machines Robotics (Boston; founded by Michael Johnson) is the autonomy-system-vendor archetype of the maritime category: it makes the autonomy brain, not the boat. Its SM300 and SM200 autonomous-command systems are vessel-agnostic retrofit kits, about ten components installed in two days or less on existing or new-build workboats from 10 to 300 feet, so the customer owns and operates the hull while Sea Machines licenses the autonomy onto it. The September 2025 SM300-NG adds class-society-approved hardware, a 200-percent compute increase, full voyage control with collision avoidance and sensor fusion, and worldwide remote command, alongside an attritable SM300-SP defense variant. A late-2024 leadership change brought David Wasson (formerly of Huntington Ingalls) in as CEO with founder Johnson moving to president and CTO, a defense-pull hire on a $10M Series C (March 2025) and about $52M total raised. DEPLOY records it at commercial maturity on a real shipping product, class-society approval, and more than 200 systems delivered worldwide, and it credits the company with units delivered rather than sea-days, since its autonomy runs on other companies' hulls. The SM300-SP claim of more than 100 units a month is a stated production rate. As a B2B autonomy licensing business, no consumer price is published.
Common questions
- What is the difference between Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) and SM300 / SM200?
- Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) and SM300 / SM200 are both maritime_surface robots on the DEPLOY registry. They differ in maker, maturity, price, verified deployments, and how much of their autonomy is independently verified. See the table above for the full head-to-head; each figure is sourced.
- Which has more verified deployments, Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) or SM300 / SM200?
- Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) and SM300 / SM200 each have 1 verified deployment on the DEPLOY registry (confirmed at named sites with primary sources).
Recent coverage
- Corsair Discount Code: Up to 50% Off for July 2026Saronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) · Wired · 2026-07-09
- Sea Machines STORMRUNNER USV supports counter-UAS capability testSM300 / SM200 · AgentRecon · 2026-06-30
- Inside Saronic, the B defense startup building sea dronesSaronic USV (Corsair / Mirage / Marauder) · AgentRecon · 2026-06-15
- Sea Machines Announces Emerging Record Year of Bookings and Global Growth Fueled by USV AdoptionSM300 / SM200 · AgentRecon · 2026-04-22
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