Bulwark Dynamics, a California-based maritime logistics startup, announced $6.8 million in seed funding to ramp production of its 15-foot Caravel autonomous landing craft and accelerate development of a larger 35-foot variant.
Bulwark Dynamics’ Caravel lineup and mission
The Caravel family is designed for last-mile logistics in shallow littoral waters and for production at a sub-$1M cost that the company says allows the vessels to be fielded in numbers. The 15-foot Caravel has a 6,600-pound payload capacity, a 340 nautical mile range, fits in a shipping container and can be deployed from an aircraft or a larger vessel. The 35-foot variant, currently under development, is stated to have a 23,000-pound payload capacity and a 1,700 nautical mile range.
Earlier this year Bulwark demonstrated a full logistics mission with a Caravel 15 prototype that included unmanned transit, beaching, cargo offload and retraction off the beach without any human intervention. The company currently uses a third-party autonomy stack but is exploring development of its own autonomy software.
Funding, partners and production plans
The $6.8 million seed round is aimed at ramping production of the 15-foot USV and preparing the larger 35-foot craft for production. Investors named by the company include SBI US Gateway Fund LP, Archetype Ventures, Nēnē Ventures and Japanese shipbuilder Onomichi Dockyard. Onomichi Dockyard also signed a deal to localize production of the vessels in Japan.
CEO and cofounder Nhat Lieu, who began the company in 2025 at age 19 after studying capability gaps in military operations, framed Bulwark’s focus as a response to “contested logistics.” “The problem we [saw] was contested logistics,” he said. “Historically speaking, wars are basically decided by logistics. You gotta deliver stuff to the right place on time to sustain the command and the units.”
Lieu noted a decline in legacy logistics connectors: “In 2018, we had more than 140 vessels like logistics connectors, but now, it’s less than 70.” He described a concept of operations for the Indo-Pacific: “In a conflict in the Pacific, China would launch a lot of missiles targeting logistic connectors, so [the US] is going to want to use a much smaller logistic connector, like what we’re building. This vessel can land on the shorelines without any problems, and [users] can offload the cargo without cranes, vehicles, or any external handling equipment. That’s the CONOPS we’re seeing right now.”
He added that “building unmanned systems at scale inside the theater, on the industrial base and supply chains an ally already has, does two things at once: It solves a problem the people running these missions have today, and it puts decades of allied know-how to work on American reindustrialization.” The company says part of production will take place in Japan and that the vessels are designed with Indo-Pacific island chains in mind, with the Japanese military identified as a target customer.
