Signals in the deep

If you’re familiar with Tom Clancy’s spy thriller, The Hunt for Red October, you might picture a nearly undetectable submarine and operators behind fuzzy computer screens listening closely for faint sonar signals. Analyzing these massive amounts of data is a slow, manual process that depends as much on human interpretation as it does technology.

Matej Cernosek ’18, MS ’19 and Alex Chu ’18 are bringing this high-stakes process into the modern era through their startup Andrenam, using autonomous AI-powered sonar systems to identify and track activity in real time and transforming ocean intelligence into a scalable, data-driven network.

1. They’re building an AI-powered way to sense undersea environments.

At its core, Andrenam is focused on improving awareness in the maritime domain, combining sonar technology with artificial intelligence to help detect, classify and localize activity in the ocean. The company’s approach allows for a more scalable understanding of what is happening in the water.

“We’re effectively reimagining The Hunt for Red October in the 21st century,” Cernosek said. “We build distributed passive sonar to detect and track maritime vehicles on the surface and subsurface, and then we incorporate an AI layer on top of the hardware that can help us discriminate what types of targets are where.”

2. Their inspiration came from modern warfare trends.

The idea for the company grew out of observing how rapidly autonomous and unmanned systems are reshaping modern defense. As drones become more prevalent, the founders saw a similar shift beginning to take hold in maritime environments.

“All the technologies to detect and track submarines are not designed or purpose-built for detecting and tracking maritime drones or other small unmanned underwater vehicles. We saw a gap in the market there,” Cernosek said. “We wanted to build this underlying intelligence layer for how autonomy operates in the ocean by distributing sensors, ingesting all the raw data, getting insights out of it and then effectively communicating that to other drones to go out and do whatever they need to do.”

3. Mines gave them the technical foundation and early financial backing to help build credibility.

“The engineering-first principles we were taught at Mines laid the foundations of how to approach really challenging technical problems from a different point of view,” Cernosek said. “It’s something that the venture world appreciates, because we want a diverse ecosystem of new technologies and new approaches, solve things cheaper, better, faster, stronger.”

That technical grounding was reinforced by early financial support. Backing from the Mines Venture Fund signaled confidence in the company at a critical stage and helped strengthen its position with future investors.

“Follow-on investors look at who you have on the capital table, and being able to say that our alma mater wrote us a substantial check from a small fund definitely contributed to being able to raise down the line,” Chu said.

4. They’re expanding and want to hire Mines graduates to give them experience in a real startup environment.

“We’re reaching the point where we will be hiring more interns and full-time positions,” Chu said. “We want to hire more out of Mines.”

Working at a startup before launching one can be a critical step in understanding both the opportunities and the challenges of entrepreneurship.

“Joining a startup is a really great step into getting a taste of what that environment looks like,” Cernosek explained. “For me, I would not have started anything straight out of school. Knowing how to grow an engineering organization is completely different than accomplishing engineering tasks. Having that experience prior to starting a company is incredibly important, and the best platform to do that is to join a startup first out of school so you can get some generational knowledge and then make the decision whether or not you actually want to go through with starting a company.”

Learn more about Andrenam at andrenam.com.

MINES VENTURE FUND II TO INVEST $10M IN TECH STARTUPS

Mines Venture Fund II, Mines’ seed-funding platform, will invest $10 million in tech startups founded by alumni, faculty and students. The funding includes a $5 million commitment from the State of Colorado.

The Fund provides early-stage companies with capital, operational expertise and connections throughout powerful academic and commercialization networks and aims to invest in about 40 companies over the next four years. A portion of Mines Venture Fund II profits will be reinvested in the university, creating a permanent capital loop, meaning every successful startup helps support the next wave of innovative companies.

Learn more about Mines Venture Fund II at minesventurefund.com.