What Aquaai does

Aquaai is a private, founder-controlled company that builds a bio-inspired robotic fish platform and an associated web-based control dashboard to deliver subsurface environmental, infrastructure, and security monitoring across coasts, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, ports, harbors, aquaculture sites, marine protected areas, and flood-affected zones. The Fishlike Platform is a 3D-printed, recyclable autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with cameras and plug-n-play sensors, paired with the Aquaai Control System dashboard that surfaces mission mapping, data readings, imagery, and early-warning alerts. AI and computer vision are applied to perception, navigation, and anomaly detection for water quality, biodiversity, infrastructure condition, and security threat use cases.

The company monetizes through a Fish-as-a-Service (FaaS) model, combining hardware lease/sale with a recurring data and monitoring service delivered via quote-based, multi-year enterprise contracts. Go-to-market is direct enterprise sales targeting government and municipal water authorities, aquaculture operators, and environmental research organizations, supplemented by demonstration-led pilots. Customer logos are not publicly disclosed, and pricing is opaque.

Aquaai operates through three corporate entities: Aquaai Corporation (US, founded 2017), Aquaai Norway AS (2019), and Aquaai MENA Ltd (UAE, 2023), reflecting a deliberate but lean international footprint. The company is led by co-founders Simeon Pieterkosky (Founder & CVO) and Liane Thompson (CEO), is described as female-led and international, and operates with a small (1-10 employee) team. Total disclosed equity-like funding is approximately $1.7M across Backstage Capital, Boost VC, and a 2023 round, supplemented by grants from Innovation Norway and accelerator participation (CDL, HUB71/Techstars).

Name

Aquaai

Legal name

Aquaai Corporation

Website

https://aquaai.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Aquaai builds bio-inspired robotic fish and a web-based control dashboard to deliver Fish-as-a-Service subsurface monitoring for water quality, infrastructure, security, and biodiversity across government, aquaculture, and environmental customers in the US, Norway, and UAE.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Underwater Robotics & Environmental Monitoring

NAICS

Finfish Farming and Fish Hatcheries (112511), Aquaculture (11251), Other Aquaculture (112519)

SIC

Search, Detection, Navagation, Guidance, Aeronautical Sys (3812)

akta.pro primary industry

Aquaculture & Fish Health Services (AFAEANAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Aquaculture Health, Biosecurity & Veterinary Services (AFAEAAAK), Aquaculture Farm Services & Operations Support (net cleaning, diving, grading, harvesting) (AFAEAAAM)

Keywords

• Underwater monitoring
• Robotic fish platform
• Water quality monitoring
• Aquaculture technology
• Ocean data services

Headquarters

HQ city

San Diego

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. FaaS (Fish-as-a-Service) Hardware and Data Subscription: The company offers its robotic fish platform through a lease or service model (Fish-as-a-Service), providing access to underwater monitoring capabilities with data subscription. This combines hardware leasing with ongoing data service delivery.
2. Hardware Sales/Leasing: Direct sale or leasing of the robotic fish platform to enterprise customers for water quality monitoring, infrastructure inspection, and environmental assessment applications.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Aquaai designs, manufactures, and operates a bio-inspired robotic fish platform equipped with cameras and plug-n-play sensors for subsurface data acquisition in aquatic environments. The company delivers these capabilities through a Fish-as-a-Service (FaaS) subscription/lease model that bundles hardware access with the Aquaai Control System dashboard, AI computer vision analytics, and an early warning system for water quality, infrastructure security, and biodiversity monitoring.

Product overview

Aquaai offers Fish-as-a-Service (FaaS), a unified autonomous underwater monitoring solution comprising the Fishlike Platform (a bio-inspired robotic fish with cameras and plug-n-play sensors) and the Aquaai Control System dashboard (for web-based data access with AI, Computer Vision, and Advanced Perception). The platform provides early warning detection of underwater infrastructure, security, and environmental threats across various aquatic environments.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Fishlike Platform A bio-inspired robotic fish equipped with cameras and plug-n-play sensors for superior underwater data acquisition. Designed for unobtrusive immersion with natural habitat, with 3D-printed, recyclable construction. Sold/leased to government water authorities, aquaculture operators, and environmental organizations for subsurface monitoring.
• Aquaai Control System A web-accessible dashboard providing easy access to data readings and quality images captured by the Fishlike Platform. Features mission mapping, AI, computer vision, and advanced perception for mission control and data analysis. Used by enterprise customers to operate their deployed fish robots and review collected data.
• FaaS (Fish-as-a-Service) An intelligent, autonomous platform-as-a-service offering providing risk management for water quality, infrastructure, security, and biodiversity across coasts, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, canals, ports, harbors, beaches, marine protected areas, aquaculture operations, and flood-affected zones. Combines hardware access with data services under a recurring subscription/lease model.

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Saildrone: Saildrone builds autonomous surface vessels that collect ocean and atmospheric data for governments, science agencies and aquaculture; directly comparable to Aquaai in selling autonomous platforms + data subscriptions for ocean monitoring and risk management.
• XOCEAN: XOCEAN operates unmanned surface vessels for ocean data collection across surveying, environmental monitoring and infrastructure inspection; comparable service-based, data-delivery business model to Aquaai's FaaS offering.

Broad incumbents

• Kongsberg Discovery: Kongsberg Discovery manufactures underwater sensors, sonars, AUVs and marine instrumentation used for oceanographic, aquaculture and infrastructure monitoring; a much larger incumbent with overlapping capability to Aquaai's sensor-and-data stack.
• VideoRay: VideoRay is an established ROV manufacturer widely used for underwater infrastructure inspection, security and environmental surveys; competes with Aquaai in the underwater inspection and monitoring use case, though with traditional ROV form factors.
• Deep Trekker: Deep Trekker builds remotely operated underwater vehicles for aquaculture, inspection and security applications; a broader incumbent in the underwater robotics category Aquaai addresses, especially for fish farm and infrastructure customers.
• EdgeTech: EdgeTech manufactures underwater sonar, imaging and bathymetric systems for environmental surveys, port security and infrastructure inspection; a broad incumbent serving many of the same end customers as Aquaai with more traditional acoustic sensors.

Emerging players

• Blueye Robotics: Blueye Robotics produces compact underwater drones for inspection, aquaculture and research; an emerging player with partial overlap to Aquaai's bio-inspired platform, particularly in aquaculture and infrastructure inspection.
• Bedrock Ocean: Bedrock Ocean runs autonomous underwater mapping and surveying services for offshore wind, infrastructure and environmental monitoring; comparable autonomous data-as-a-service model targeting enterprise buyers in marine environments.
• Hydromea: Hydromea develops wireless underwater monitoring systems (mini-AUVs and optical modems) for environmental and infrastructure surveillance; overlaps with Aquaai's plug-n-play sensor and autonomous monitoring approach.
• BlueRobotics: BlueRobotics supplies low-cost underwater components, ROVs and water-quality sensors widely used by researchers and aquaculture operators; an emerging player whose sensor and platform components are sometimes bundled into solutions like Aquaai's.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/aquaaicorp
• Facebookfacebook.com/Aquaai
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/aquaai-corp

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Subsidiaries2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds4 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Aquaai