War on the Rocks – America’s defense establishment is rightly excited about the potential of unmanned ships. Companies like Saronic, Havoc.ai, Saildrone, and Blue Water Autonomy are developing fast, lethal, and scalable autonomous systems that could define the Navy’s future fleet. These firms, flush with venture capital and successful demonstrations, promise to rewrite maritime supremacy. And, it should be said upfront that as a commercial real estate advisor currently focused on these issues, I have a professional stake in these issues.

That said, even if startups clear the Pentagon’s “valley of death,” the fleet could remain a paper promise. Without financing for billion-dollar shipyards to build at scale, America’s unmanned ambitions could sink.