Eclipse

Sea power has been the bedrock of America's prosperity for centuries. The U.S. Navy is responsible for ensuring maritime security and freedom of navigation in contested waters, but the global maritime domain is under growing threat from adversaries who are investing heavily in advanced naval technologies. Consider this staggering disparity: between 2010 and 2018, China invested more than $132B into its shipyard industry, while the U.S. invested just $77M. The reality is unsettling: Chinese shipyards are launching ships at a pace that the U.S. industry simply cannot match today. To maintain technological superiority at sea, the U.S. is looking at the role of autonomous ships to complement its current fleet and restore deterrence. Today, the Eclipse team is thrilled to introduce Blue Water Autonomy, a company developing autonomous ships to modernize the maritime economy, starting with building ships for the U.S. Navy. Founded in 2024 by leaders formerly of Amazon Robotics, iRobot, and the U.S. Navy, Blue Water launches from stealth with $14M in seed funding. Eclipse Partner Seth Winterroth shares more on the company’s critical mission: https://bit.ly/3RfWa66 Congratulations Rylan Hamilton, Scott N. Miller, Austin Gray, and Blue Water team!

Aidan Madigan-Curtis, a GP at Eclipse Ventures, and a former global supply manager at Apple, shared how hardware startups are adjusting to the new tariff regime. We spoke on Tuesday and the piece was published yesterday, before President Trump reversed some of the duties. Still, the insights here remain relevant. Read our Q&A in the WSJ Pro VC newsletter. https://lnkd.in/egDBjHWh

Nissan Motor Corporation announced starting FY2027 they’ll launch their next-generation ProPILOT autonomous driving technology powered by Wayve AI Driver. This partnership sets a new standard in autonomous driving, combining Wayve's Embodied AI and Nissan's Ground Truth Perception technology with next-gen LiDAR to deliver advanced collision avoidance and intelligent driving. More on the news: https://bit.ly/4icdvYq

There are upwards of half a million sites across the U.S. polluted with substances toxic to human and environmental health, and are barred from development until they are cleaned. This includes EPA designated-Superfund sites, decommissioned military bases, gas stations, manufacturing sites, airports, areas polluted with runoff from crop fertilizer or hazardous substances from industrial production, and much more. In the Bay Area alone — a region long known for its environmental stewardship — 2,500 sites are marked as contaminated. As pervasive as this problem is across the country, the vast majority of contaminated land stays that way due to how slow, costly, and unsustainable current land remediation methods are. Clean, usable land is at the crux of any effort to revitalize our cities. As we push for more urbanization, expanded electrification, and a range of industrial revitalization, such as the resurgence of onshore manufacturing, the need for remediation and redevelopment will increase. Eclipse is proud to introduce Remedy Scientific Inc., a first-of-its-kind environmental remediation automation company with a mission to transform how the U.S. addresses environmentally contaminated land. The company — which was formed in 2023 in partnership with Eclipse Venture Equity and is launching with $11M in seed funding — has built a modular, mobile decontamination system designed to be deployable on contaminated sites in a matter of hours versus the months or years it currently takes environmental management companies to set up a treatment project. More from Eclipse Venture Partner ashwin pushpala on how Remedy’s approach will help unlock billions in underutilized land assets: https://bit.ly/3RNBDWt Congratulations Randol Aikin, PhD and Remedy team!

The physical AI industry is expected to surge from $100.6B this year to $178.6B by 2030, writes Digital CxO's Jon Swartz. As AI, robotics, and advanced automation merge to help redefine physical industries like manufacturing, healthcare, supply chain, and on, the U.S. and China are locked in an intensifying struggle as they race for dominance in the physical AI market. Yet, American robotics startups like Mytra and Bright Machines, as well as Big Tech players like NVIDIA Corp., believe they have an edge over their Chinese rivals — they just need more help from the U.S. government. Eclipse Partner Seth Winterroth weighed in: https://bit.ly/43D0rI5

Eclipse Partner Jiten Behl and Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe joined Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde to discuss Also., a first-of-its-kind, global micromobility company spun out of Rivian with $105M in funding from Eclipse: https://bit.ly/41VxLZD

Congratulations Fabian Gerlinghaus, Omar Kurdi, and Cellares team on this incredible accomplishment!

For the past decade, Eclipse has been at the forefront of investing in and building the new generation of physical industries by partnering with entrepreneurs to reshape advanced manufacturing, healthcare, defense, supply chain, and on. As a country, we currently face a moment of great change where the public and private sectors must work diligently to harness technological advances like physical AI to completely rethink America’s industrial base in order to stay competitive. In the words of Eclipse’s new Head of Policy and Government Affairs, Thomas Storch, “To meet the defining challenges of our time, disruption — which may be bumpy, uncomfortable, and jarring — is urgently required.” While the challenges our country faces are great, so are the opportunities. Across stages and industries, Eclipse’s team of operators and our portfolio companies are hard at work to capitalize on these opportunities. Read our newsletter for the latest as we execute on our mission to build the New Economy: https://bit.ly/3E1SSQM

Home to some of the most exciting startups in the world, Los Angeles has earned its reputation as an innovation powerhouse. This is especially true for aerospace, defense, manufacturing, and transportation, thanks to its strategic location, existing infrastructure and, of course, top-tier talent.     If you are looking to expand your career in LA's thriving startup scene, Eclipse portfolio companies Arc, True Anomaly, and Skyryse are hiring!   Arc — Supply Chain Specialist: https://bit.ly/427snBv True Anomaly — Manager, Media Production: https://bit.ly/4j3IruJ Skyryse — Electrical Engineer: https://bit.ly/4iM7UZW   All Los Angeles County-based portfolio jobs: https://bit.ly/4iOL0RT

Training autonomous driving systems to handle the unexpected is one of the biggest challenges in the industry. Eclipse portfolio company Wayve announced GAIA-2, the company's latest breakthrough generative world-model for autonomy. With GAIA-2, Wayve is unlocking a new frontier in video generation — empowering developers to create richly diverse, controllable, and safety-critical driving scenarios at scale. More on how GAIA-2 accelerates Wayve's path to safe driver assistance and automated driving at scale: https://bit.ly/4jrfOYX Congratulations Alex Kendall and Wayve team!