Andy Rebele didn’t simply drift away from Seattle’s maritime startup scene after the demise of Pure Watercraft, the electrical propulsion firm he spent 13 years constructing. He put in movement a plan to innovate once more.
A bit of over a yr after Pure shut down and bought off its belongings, Rebele is the founder and CEO of Thallios, a brand new firm with a brand new mission.
“It is a firm that’s born out of the legacy of Pure Watercraft,” Rebele instructed GeekWire.
Pure’s predominant product and mental property was its electric outboard motor, used to energy, amongst different issues, an modern pontoon boat directed at leisure boaters.
However the firm additionally had belongings throughout different marine pursuits, together with military-related expertise — which is the spine of Thallios, the place Rebele and a small workforce of former Pure staff are centered on autonomous marine craft.
“We acquired all the navy oriented IP,” Rebele mentioned, including that Pure beforehand accomplished a navy contract the place it constructed an electrical private watercraft designed for search and rescue. The acquisition comes with a contract that Pure partially executed and that Thallios will tackle with the Protection Division’s Defense Innovation Unit.
Thallios, which relies at an undisclosed Seattle location however integrated in Texas, shall be constructing a small, autonomous floor craft that might be a ship or a personal-sized craft like a Jet Ski. Rebele mentioned electrical propulsion might be employed, and the craft’s predominant purposes might be both logistical, like taking provides from level A to B, or one-way missions, like sending a ship “that doesn’t come house,” he mentioned, implying explosive capabilities.
“The best way to consider that is analogous to the airborne drone theater,” Rebele mentioned. “When you take a look at Ukraine, what has revolutionized battle preventing within the final two or three years has been that small attritable drones have dominated.”
The mission is a departure from Pure’s onetime goal to disrupt the gas-powered leisure boating trade with a extra environmentally pleasant electrical outboard motor.
Based in 2011, Pure Watercraft raised $37 million and attracted backing from Basic Motors, which acquired a 25% stake within the firm in November 2021. The startup received Sustainable Innovation of the Yr on the 2023 GeekWire Awards.
However even with GM’s funding and the launch of a Pure Pontoon boat to attraction to a large swath of American leisure boaters, the startup bumped into monetary troubles and was positioned into receivership in July 2024.
Rebele has taken his time to replicate on what went fallacious, why GM pulled out, and the way a lot blame he ought to take.
“I actually haven’t gone into depth on what occurred with Pure, however I’ll say that its failure, whereas precipitated within the second by an motion by GM, numerous accountability for that was failures of execution by Pure,” he mentioned. “And if we had been to do it once more, there are various issues I’d do in another way.”
Rebele is worked up to come back at a brand new startup with a distinct tack. Foremost is his enthusiasm round not having to do any fundraising.
“We now have no want to boost cash, as a result of the present navy contract funds the corporate,” he mentioned, including that almost all startup CEOs he talks to spend 70% of their time courting traders. It’s time he’d somewhat spend centered on execution at Thallios.
“Most CEOs, together with myself, are first rate at numerous issues. They’re not one of the best at something,” Rebele mentioned. “While you’re not busy knocking on investor doorways, the hands-on work you do can relieve the necessity to rent a number of totally different positions.”
Thallios might want to stake out its territory in protection tech and be taught what worth it could possibly deliver in comparison with others who’ve been within the sector for some time.
Within the Seattle space, various startups are innovating on behalf of the navy: Overland AI spun out of the College of Washington to make self-driving automobiles; Kirkland, Wash.-based Echodyne makes superior radar expertise; and Exia Labs builds AI software program to enhance wargaming efforts.
A brand new Renton, Wash.-based accelerator program, referred to as the Protection Expertise Accelerator, additionally launched earlier this year with the objective of figuring out and supporting startups and applied sciences that handle Protection Division wants.
In Rebele’s opinion, too many firms have gone too excessive tech and he’s not curious about making “gold-plated” protection belongings to go up towards high-volume, lower-cost merchandise from American and Allied adversaries. Value and speedy manufacturing scalability shall be key to Thallios’ success.
“We will’t have our Lamborghinis preventing their VW Beetles,” he mentioned. “I feel it’s tempting for brand new protection tech firms to slide down that slope.”
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