Australian startup Hullbot has been awarded the Australian Good Design Award of the Year—the nation’s highest design honour—beating global giants such as Tesla, Hyundai, and Polestar. Hullbot’s autonomous hull-cleaning robot tackles the costly drag caused by biofouling, improving fuel efficiency by an average of 15% and up to 26% across global fleets.

Hullbot has raised AUD $16 million in Series A round led by Regeneration.VC, with participation from Katapult Ocean, Climate Tech Partners, Folklore Ventures, Trinity Ventures, Rypples, NewSouth Innovations, Artesian, Impact Ventures/Ocean Impact Collective, and Bandera Capital to grow production capacity, evolve larger robotic systems, and establish more international service hubs. In addition to the top award, Hullbot secured Gold and Best in Class Awards for Commercial & Industrial Product Design, underscoring its industry-leading innovation, scalability, and environmental impact.

Biofouling, the growth of marine organisms on ship hulls, is one of the maritime sector’s most pressing challenges. It can increase fuel burn and emissions by up to 25% and is responsible for the majority of invasive species transfer across oceans. Traditional antifouling solutions rely on toxic paints, which are also a leading source of ocean microplastics.

Hullbot provides a better alternative. The company’s autonomous robots perform frequent, gentle cleaning of hulls, keeping vessels in optimal condition without damaging coatings. This approach reduces emissions, operating costs, and ocean pollution simultaneously. Hullbot has already cleaned 82 vessels across the US, EU, and Asia-Pacific, currently averaging more than 100 cleans per month, cutting operating costs and emissions across fleets globally.

With the support of this USD $10.6 million round, Hullbot will scale its production capacity, expand international service hubs, and accelerate the development of larger robotic systems to serve additional vessel classes in global fleets. 

“Hullbot sits at the intersection of shipping efficiency, decarbonization, and ocean health,” Tom Loefler, Hullbot CEO. “Our service model is proving that sustainability and economic performance can go together, and this raise allows us to take that impact to the next level.”

This impact has not gone unnoticed. Hullbot was recently awarded the Australian Good Design Award of the Year—the nation’s highest design honour—beating global giants such as Tesla, Hyundai, and Polestar. In addition to the top award, Hullbot secured Gold and Best in Class Awards for Commercial & Industrial Product Design, underscoring its industry-leading innovation, scalability, and environmental impact.

“Hullbot has a unique value proposition which leverages the strengths of their robotics with a laser focus on their customer’s problem,” said Ross Brooks, General Partner at Katapult Ocean. “It has been really inspiring to witness the enthusiasm from the industry when they first see this solution in action. Truly an enabler of a new norm in hull treatment and maintenance, with meaningful cost and fuel savings for their customers.”