Spear AI raises $2.3M to bring AI-powered threat detection to U.S. Navy submarines

For years, the U.S. military has collected vast amounts of underwater acoustic data—raw, chaotic, and largely unlabeled. Now, a startup founded by two Navy veterans is tackling that data head-on with a mission to make sense of what submarines hear beneath the surface.

Spear AI, an AI startup based in Washington, has secured $2.3 million in its first outside funding round to accelerate its work decoding underwater sounds using artificial intelligence, Reuters reported. The funding was led by Cortical Ventures, an AI-focused venture firm, with participation from private equity firm Scare the Bear.

At the heart of Spear AI’s pitch is a problem that’s been quietly sitting on the ocean floor: passive acoustic data. These are the sounds picked up by underwater listening devices—think rain squalls, whales, rogue waves, or potential enemy vessels. Separating the signal from the noise, quite literally, is a challenge traditional AI tools aren’t built to solve. Most AI systems are trained on neatly labeled datasets full of text or images. Underwater sound? That’s a whole different beast.

Spear AI, Founded by Navy Veterans, Raises $2.3M to Make Submarine Acoustic Data More Useful with AI

Spear AI’s co-founders, Michael Hunter and John McGunnigle, are building the tools they wish they had during their service. Hunter was a Navy SEAL support analyst and worked with the Joint Special Operations Command. McGunnigle commanded a nuclear submarine. Together, they’re building both hardware and software to prepare acoustic data for AI systems—turning raw sonar recordings into something machines can actually learn from.

Their product stack includes sensors that can be deployed on buoys or vessels and a software platform that helps label and organize the incoming audio data. The goal is to help AI systems learn how to tell the difference between harmless ocean noise and something that might be worth chasing.

That pitch is already landing. The U.S. Navy recently awarded the company a $6 million contract for its data-labeling software. And with the new private capital, Spear AI plans to double its 40-person team to keep up with government contracts and to explore commercial uses like monitoring undersea pipelines and internet cables.

Hunter said the company took an unconventional route—building the product before chasing contracts. “We wanted to build the product and actually get it out the door before the contract came in to get it,” he told Reuters. “The only way you can do that is with private capital.”

Founded in 2021 and bootstrapped until now, Spear AI is also exploring a consulting model similar to Palantir’s—helping customers make sense of their data, one sonar ping at a time.