EvoNexus Company, DeepWater Exploration Prepares Makes Splash with High-Pressure Cameras
TECHNOLOGY: Startup On Track to Double Revenue in Growing Market
“DeepWater Exploration entered EvoNexus as four engineers who had recently graduated from UCSD. During their admission process I immediately recognized their potential as a lifelong scuba diver and amateur underwater photographer,” said Rory Moore, Co-Founder and CEO of EvoNexus. “This startup has accomplished what very few have during their physical incubation at EvoNexus. They are manufacturing and shipping products to customers while in incubation. Barely a week goes by without a new customer ordering their product. The company receives hands-on mentorship from a wide-range of EvoNexus volunteers. Their progress inspires other startups in our program every day.”
SAN DIEGO BUSINESS JOURNAL / SAN DIEGO, CA / JULY 17TH, 2024 / Like many entrepreneurs, the founders of DeepWater Exploration launched their business with a sudden realization about a market gap.
In this case, the entrepreneurs were UC San Diego students competing in the annual RoboSub competition, which pits teams of college engineers among one another to create underwater devices that can do specific tasks.
They needed a camera that was small, affordable, had low latency and could withstand pressure. Nobody seemed to have what they wanted, so student Jiajer “Joseph” Ho, who already had launched a successful audio company that he exited after garnering over $2 million in revenue in 18 months, decided to build their own.
Other teams wanted the cameras, and as word spread online about what they had, emails started coming in from companies and even government agencies.
“Then came the realization that people want these,” said [Co-Founder & COO], Warren Chang.
“Maybe we should build them ourselves and sell them.”
Ho is now CEO of DeepWater Exploration and Chang is the company’s chief operating officer. They launched the company in their apartment as students and now work out of the EvoNexus incubator and have sold about 2,300 units. Chang said they’re on track to have $600,000 in revenue this year, doubling what they earned in 2023.
The average price of their camera had been around $300 to $350, with some customers receiving bulk prices, while a higher-capacity model introduced this year has increased the average cost to around $700.
A Growing Market
Ho said as inquiries about their cameras started rolling in, they realized they had something people wanted.
“That’s when we started to think, oh, there’s a much bigger market to tap,” he said. “We’re not just solving a problem on the robotics team, but we’re solving a much bigger problem in the industry.”
“The momentum really picked up, and we thought, ‘Let’s see where this goes,’” Chang said about the company’s launch. “At the time, we didn’t really realize that within the underwater robotics space, there’s a huge shift toward autonomous vehicles.”
Elaborating, Chang said most companies that use underwater robotics rely on remotely operated robots that are tethered to a ship and operated by a pilot. They’re maintained by a team of engineers, adding to the cost of operating them.
More companies are starting to use untethered autonomous vehicles, which have certain advantages but also several challenges. Cameras for the vehicles need to relay very high-quality data but also operate on relatively lower power because the vehicles themselves consume a large amount of power, Chang said.
The cameras also have to have low latency, meaning they must relay information quickly to the computer controlling them, he said.
Autonomous underwater vehicles also are lighter, but a typical camera that could withstand 6,000 meters in depth has the footprint of a small fire extinguisher, Chang said. In comparison, a DeepWater Exploration camera that can withstand that depth has the footprint of an orange.
Wide Array of Use Cases
The company’s base model is a camera that can go 400 meters below the surface of the ocean. Another camera can go up to 1,000 meters below the surface, and the third can withstand 6,000 meters, giving access to 95%of the ocean floor. That model also can be upgraded to go to the deepest point in the ocean, or about 11,500 meters.
DeepWater Exploration also has created a light to go with the cameras at the request of some customers who wanted a more integrated solution.
Chang said the company has not had to do any fundraising because it has had a predictable cash flow and loyal customers.
“That said, we are concurrently developing our software suite in tandem with our hardware suite, and that does tend to be a bit more capital intensive compared to what we’ve managed so far with the hardware,” he said. “So we are sort of looking to see what potential routes may be in regards to a fundraise.”
Chang said companies that need underwater cameras sometimes find rather crude solutions.
“Most people would just use off-the-shelf security cameras, put them into something like a bottle, essentially just an underwater housing, and plug it into the robot and call it a day,” he said. “That works if you have a human operator who just needs to get a general idea of what’s in their surroundings and they don’t really need to do high-precision measurements based off the video feed.”
Ho and Chang said customers in need of their cameras include fisheries that need to track and monitor fish, companies laying cables and underwater mining projects for minerals such as cobalt and lithium.
DeepWater Exploration Chief Technical Officer Kunal Singla noted that oil and gas industries also are in need of reliable deep-water cameras to maintain their structures, as are newer industries working on climate technology and offshore wind farms.
“It’s a big, growing market, and surprisingly we’re the only ones pretty much tackling the computer vision aspect of the underwater industry,” he said.
SOURCE: Gary Warth, San Diego Business Journal
About DeepWater Exploration
FOUNDED: 2023
CEO: Jiajer “Joseph” Ho
HEADQUARTERS: San Diego
BUSINESS: Camera manufacturer
ANNUAL REVENUE: $600,000
EMPLOYEES: 6
CONTACT: (424) 337-0534
WEBSITE: https://dwe.ai/
About EvoNexus
EvoNexus is California’s leading nonprofit technology startup incubator located in San Diego. EvoNexus has successfully incubated over 260 startups with a survival rate of over 85%. Since the incubator’s formation in 2010, EvoNexus companies have secured over $1.6B in venture funding, $10B in pre-exit valuation, and had 51 acquisitions valued at over $2.1B. EvoNexus is supported by corporate partners, including some of the largest multinational corporations in the world. Learn more at evonexus.org/.