French underwater robotics company Forssea Robotics has raised €3.8 million from SOFILARO (Crédit Agricole), Qair Innovation and a France 2030 grant to finance the commercial deployment of its ARGOS remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
The fundraising will finance Forssea’s commercial deployment with the manufacture of new ARGOS vehicles that will be placed on long-term leases with maritime service companies in France and abroad.
The €1.8 million from BPI (CORIMER – France 2030) will see the French company collaborating with iXBlue, whose DriX surface drone will embark a Forssea robot during 2023. A joint research team with Ifremer will also be created.
Supervised remotely, the Forssea ARGOS robot is capable of diving to a depth of 500 meters to perform autonomous inspections of structures, such as wind turbine foundations and anchor chains, or cable tracking.
After doubling its turnover last year, the company said it is also looking to deploy its vision systems in new sectors such as defense, construction and nuclear after several successful pilot projects.
Forssea was in the news on Offshore Energy a few times last year, with the most recent announcement concerning its collaboration with Aker BP and DeepOcean to develop the underwater Autonomous Inspection Drone (AID).
The companies conducted the first offshore full-scale test on subsea templates at Aker BP’s Skarv field, 210 kilometers west of the Norwegian coast in water depths of approximately 400 meters.