Havoc Raises $100 Million Series A for Autonomous Drone Boats

"For every brand-new mission there is tuning and some small changes but the core is ready and nothing would need to be rewritten from scratch," he said. Havoc has over 20,000 hours of testing. Its biggest trials so far used 25 boats at once.

Saronic has tested over 30 boats at once and Anduril over 50. Havoc hopes to test 50 boats at a time this summer. The company beat Saronic in the Army innovation competition xTechPacific last year. 25 billion valuation.

Havoc does not manufacture its own hulls, instead focusing on software that outfits vessels from other builders. U.S. military used some Havoc vessels a few weeks ago during Balikatan exercises in the Philippines.

The Chinese government placed sanctions on Havoc in December 2024 and again in April 2025. Lwin believes the sanctions were because he spoke publicly about bolstering Taiwan's defenses. Lwin grew up in Burma and fled to the United States with his family at age 10.

U.S. embassy in Burma helped sneak Lwin, his mother and two siblings out of the country in 1995. He became an American citizen in 2000, earned an undergraduate degree at the Naval Academy and served 11 years in the Navy, including two in the Persian Gulf.

Andrew Roy, now a Havoc executive, was Lwin's teacher at the Naval Academy. Joe Turner, 42, is cofounder and chief operating officer. He and his dad started an underwater vehicle company called Exocetus in 2016 that closed in 2023.

Havoc was started in January 2024 after both men left roles at the electric seaglider maker REGENT. Investment in defense tech was already surging over the past few years driven by the Ukraine War, the Pentagon's appetite for commercial technologies and swelling military budgets.

Since the war in Iran began, the median funding round for American aerospace defense companies has been $20 million according to PitchBook, compared to $5 million over the 12 months before the war.

Forbes reported these details.