Spear AI, a startup founded by U.S. Navy veterans, has raised its first round of external funding to help the U.S. military harness artificial intelligence for analyzing submarine data.
Based in Washington, the company focuses on passive acoustic data—information collected by underwater listening devices. Its goal is to use AI to help submarine crews distinguish between sounds such as a rain squall, a whale, or a potentially threatening vessel, while also determining the object’s location and speed.
Unlike traditional AI systems that are trained on well-labeled text or image datasets curated over years by companies like Scale AI (which recently signed a $14.8-billion deal with Meta), acoustic sensor data lacks structured labeling. Spear AI is tackling this by building a dedicated hardware and software platform to make such data AI-ready.
Michael Hunter—a former Navy SEAL analyst—and John McGunnigle—a former nuclear submarine commander—co-founded the company and are developing sensors that attach to buoys or vessels, along with software tools that label and organize acoustic data. These tools help transform raw data into formats suitable for AI analysis.
This month, the U.S. Navy awarded Spear AI a $6-million contract for its data-labeling solution. Previously self-funded, Spear AI has about 40 employees and was founded in 2021. The startup has now raised $2.3 million from AI-focused venture capital firm Cortical Ventures and private equity firm Scare the Bear.
CEO Michael Hunter said the fresh capital will help the company double its workforce to support both government contracts and emerging commercial applications like monitoring underwater pipelines and cables. Spear AI also plans to offer consulting services, adopting a model similar to that of defense tech giant Palantir.
