British defense company Kraken Technology and German shipbuilder NVL Group have formed an Anglo-German joint venture (JV) alliance to accelerate the development and scale production of autonomous surface vessel capabilities.
As disclosed, the JV aims to rapidly meet the globally growing demand for market-ready, scalable, uncrewed platforms of various sizes for both military and civilian applications, such as the surveillance and protection of critical infrastructure.
Through this joint venture, NVL is expanding its capabilities as a shipbuilding group and system integrator, specialising in the construction of complex naval vessels to include interaction between crewed naval vessels and autonomous uncrewed platforms.
Meanwhile, Kraken Technology Group specializes in the development of high-performance uncrewed maritime systems and will benefit from NVL’s comprehensive manufacturing and integration capabilities. NVL recently invested in Kraken Technology Group and has secured options to invest in a further round.
According to the partners, the current threat level requires innovative solutions that meet the tactical operational needs of the armed forces. In the future, naval operations will increasingly be conducted by manned-unmanned teaming, enhancing collaboration between crewed and uncrewed systems.
As a result, NVL will offer complete solutions consisting of crewed naval vessels in combination with autonomous and individually configurable deployment systems provided by the joint venture between NVL and Kraken.
“The joint venture with Kraken offers us the opportunity to rapidly react to the latest requirements of our customers and to provide market-ready autonomous systems quickly and in high volumes,” said Tim Wagner , CEO of NVL.
“At the same time, by taking this step, we are expanding our role as a pioneer in the development of manned/unmanned teaming (MUM-T) concepts and are creating the right conditions for launching additional innovative solutions in this field. This also includes, for instance, our design concepts for the naval tender vessel NTV 130 as a drone mothership that could succeed the six tender vessels (the ELBE class) currently operated by the German Navy.”
“We are honoured to partner with NVL as we expand our ability to provide fully sovereign, autonomous maritime capabilities to our Allied nations. Working with NVL will allow exponential scaling of production and supply chain to meet growing threats through deployment of high-performance, multi-role, mass capabilities across our seas,” stated Mal Crease , CEO of Kraken Technology Group.
The joint venture will begin with smaller vessels and expand to larger uncrewed platforms by combining NVL’s expertise in building complex naval vessels with Kraken’s experience in developing small, fast, and robust uncrewed systems. Manufacturing is scheduled to start in Q4 2025.
Last year, Kraken partnered with BlueHalo to integrate the latter’s artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML)-backed autonomous mission systems into Kraken’s littoral security platforms.