HavBotics Investor brief

Autonomous surface vessels

Intercept sargassum at sea.

HavBotics builds the BeachDefender: autonomous vessels that work in pairs to sweep seaweed mats away from Caribbean beaches, 24/7, before they make landfall.

Request investor brief See how it works

Concept render

The problem

From Mexico to the Lesser Antilles, the world’s most beautiful beaches are vanishing under millions of tons of rotting seaweed. Tourists leave. Hotels empty. Billions in tourism spending wash away with every bloom.

A Caribbean shoreline buried under a thick orange carpet of sargassum seaweed.
Clear turquoise water and white sand below the cliffs of Tulum, Mexico.
What travelers come for What they find
Drag to compare. Left: Tulum, Mexico. Right: a sargassum landfall in the Eastern Caribbean.

The trend

And it’s only getting worse.

33.5 million tons of sargassum floated in the Atlantic in June 2026, a record. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has returned every year since 2011, and it keeps growing.

Sargassum collected in Mexico, metric tons per year From beaches At sea
Bar chart. Sargassum collected in Mexico rose from 43 thousand tons in 2019 to 96 thousand tons in 2026, with the at-sea share growing from 544 tons to 16 thousand tons. 100K75K50K25K0 43K2019 25K2020 54K2021 66K2022 51K2023 41K2024 93K2025 96K2026

2.2×

Growth in Mexico’s annual haul since 2019.

16K t

Collected at sea in 2026, up from 544 t in 2019. Offshore is where the fight is moving.

Sources: Mexico Navy Secretariat and municipal governments (via Reuters); NASA Earth Observatory; University of South Florida Optical Oceanography Lab.

Status quo

Today’s solutions aren’t enough.

  • Orange floating barrier boom stretched across calm water.

    Barriers

    Fixed booms guard a single stretch, struggle in heavy swell and need constant upkeep.

  • Crewed collection boat with a conveyor loading sargassum.

    Collection boats

    Crewed, costly by the hour and limited to calmer nearshore water.

  • Dozens of workers raking sargassum on a resort beach.

    Ground crews

    Raking and hauling only starts once the seaweed lands, so beaches still close.

Coastlines spend millions every season, and most of it goes on cleanup after the damage is done.

The solution

Meet BeachDefender

An autonomous catamaran built for one job: keeping sargassum off your coastline.

Front view of the yellow BeachDefender autonomous catamaran on turquoise water, with its sensor mast raised.

Economical

Protect more coastline for less with an autonomous, 24/7 solution.

Effective

Redirect the largest sargassum mats while they’re still at sea.

Safe

Protect beaches without harming marine life or watercraft.

  • Works in pairs with a special net
  • Supported by local boat crews
  • Live monitoring onshore

Engineering

Simple, tough and locally serviceable.

Commercial components, a modular build and twin mechanical diesels keep each vessel reliable at sea and repairable in any Caribbean port.

  1. 01

    Communications & sensors

    Starlink for beyond-line-of-sight links, AIS transceiver, GPS/RTK positioning, 360° cameras, navigation and status lights.

  2. 02

    Autonomous systems

    Onboard computer with AI navigation and obstacle detection, geofencing, mission control and remote monitoring.

  3. 03

    Twin diesel engines

    Two independent marine diesels drive gearboxes and props directly. Simple, reliable, locally serviceable.

  4. 04

    Electrical power

    Engine-driven alternators charge a battery bank feeding a redundant 24/48V DC house system.

  5. 05

    Towing system

    Reinforced central tow bridle with integrated load cell and remote or manual release, designed for paired operations.

  6. 06

    Hull & structure

    Stable catamaran hull in marine-grade aluminum, foam-filled for unsinkability. Corrosion resistant, low maintenance.

  7. 07

    Protected propulsion

    Ducted, guarded props resist seaweed entanglement, with reverse-clearing capability.

Tow speed
4–6 kn
Transit speed
7–10 kn
Endurance
2–5 days
Tow range
30 km
Offshore reach
20 km
Target cost / vessel
<$100K

How it works

See it. Predict it. Sweep it.

  1. 01 · See & predict

    Know where it’s heading

    NASA PACE satellite imagery maps floating algae, and drift models forecast where and when mats will reach a protected coastline.

  2. 02 · Capture

    Capture offshore

    A BeachDefender pair tows a special net to gather the mat while it’s still at sea.

  3. 03 · Redirect & release

    Send it where it does no harm

    The mat is steered past the coast, to a managed landfall or to a pickup point, with live monitoring onshore.

Three ways to redirect

Steer the mat into a current that carries it past the coastline entirely.

Satellite view of a Caribbean island’s southern coastline and reef.
Illustrative routes. Satellite imagery for reference only.

Business model

Beach protection, as a service.

Customers pick a level of protection, and we put enough BeachDefender pairs on the water to deliver it.

Baseline target pricing

$180USD

per quarter kilometer of beach, per day

That’s $720 per kilometer, in US dollars.

  • A fraction of the cost of the tourism revenue lost when sargassum closes a beach
  • Discounts for contiguous stretches of coastline
  • Full-cycle revenue: collected sargassum supplied to beauty and biofuel partners

Protection levels

  1. Baseline

    Divert ~20% of incoming blooms, focused on the largest mats.

  2. Enhanced

    More pairs in service for wider, more consistent coverage.

  3. Total

    “No sargassum touches your beach.” Our premium offering.

Season estimator

Indicative season cost (USD) $43,200

Indicative, at target pricing before pilots. Final pricing depends on protection level and site conditions.

Team

Ships, software and the Caribbean.

Our leadership team is in stealth, currently in executive roles at autonomous technology, defense and watercraft engineering firms.

CEO · CGO · CTO · COO

Collective experience

  • Autonomous systems & software
  • Unmanned surface vessels (USVs)
  • Sea fleet management
  • Vessel engineering
  • Selling technology to governments & commercial groups
  • Ships, nets & the Caribbean Sea

Advisors

  • Sargassum researchersBloom science & drift behavior
  • NASA sea imagery expertsSatellite detection & forecasting
  • Caribbean tourism expertsResort, government & destination partners

Pre-seed funding round

This round proves three things.

Pre-seed capital takes BeachDefender from design to validated pilot, with real vessels, real water and real customers.

  1. 01

    The vessel & net design

    • Range, speed, power & stability
    • Cost trade-offs
    • Sargassum capture, drag & release
  2. 02

    The concept of operations

    • “See” and predict bloom locations accurately enough
    • “Sweep” sargassum the way we’ve designed
  3. 03

    The economic model

    • Pricing & benefits validated with governments
    • Tourism & industry group partnerships

Help us save Caribbean beaches.

Investors: request the full brief and financial model. Governments, resorts and tourism boards: talk to us about a pilot on your coastline.

Priority access for public partners. Governments, associations and tourism boards that also invest get priority for pilots and active protection missions.

Prefer email? contact@havbotics.com

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