Saronic Technologies valued at $4 billion after $600 million fundraising

(Reuters) -Saronic Technologies said on Tuesday it has closed a $600 million Series C funding round, led by investor Elad Gil, which valued the autonomous shipbuilding company at $4 billion.

The company said it would use the funds to build a new shipyard, called Port Alpha, to expand its autonomous surface vessel fleet into medium and large-class ships for the United States defense applications.

It would also use the proceeds to develop hybrid fleets for the U.S. Navy by integrating a significant number of unmanned systems and manned platforms.

“With this raise, we will invest into the U.S. shipbuilding infrastructure and work with federal and state legislators to establish public-private partnerships,” Saronic said.

The company received the backing of a new investor, General Catalyst in the latest funding round. Its existing investors include a16z, Caffeinated Capital and Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC.

Venture firms are growing more comfortable with signing big checks as a recovery in dealmaking and initial public offerings, spurred by interest rate cuts, provides them with greater opportunities to exit their investments.

Global venture capital dealmaking activity rose more than 5% to $368.5 billion last year, according to a report by PitchBook.

In December, the Financial Times reported that Saronic is expected to be part of a proposed consortium, which may also include data analytics firm Palantir and defense tech company Anduril Industries, to jointly bid for U.S. government work and supply cutting-edge defense and weapons capabilities.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)