Episode 400: Rylan Hamilton - CEO & Co-Founder, Blue Water Autonomy

Episode 400 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Rylan Hamilton, CEO & Co-Founder of Blue Water Autonomy. Episode 400! It’s another milestone episode. On November 2, 2017, I published the first episode of The VentureFizz Podcast. My first 11 episodes were an experiment where I interviewed talent acquisition leaders. Christina Luconi was my first guest. Thank you Christina! After seeing the potential, I pivoted to interviewing mainly founders & investors in Boston and NYC. I want to send out shout-out to all the people who have taken the time to share their stories with me and the VentureFizz audience. It has been a pleasure to interview all of you. For Episode 400, I wanted to interview someone who not only has had extraordinary background but someone who is also still building. Interviewing Rylan for this milestone episode was a no-brainer. Rylan’s professional career has been one of exploration and not just one linear path. From graduating from Harvard to enlisting in the Navy as an Engineering Officer for surface warfair, to Harvard Business School, to being the first employee at RunMyErrand which later became TaskRabbit, to learning warehouse robotics at Kiva Systems which ended up being the 2nd largest acquisition by Amazon at the time, to starting his own warehouse robotics company called 6 River Systems which was acquired by Shopify for $450M… to now… working on his latest startup, which no doubt is his biggest swing which is Blue Water Automony… a startup building autonomous ships for the open ocean. The company recently announced a $50M Series A round of funding led GV. This is shortly after announcing a $14M seed round of funding earlier this year back in April. In this interview, we cover how Rylan’s service in the armed forces helped shape his career, his full background story, plus all the chapters along the way, to all the details about Blue Water Authonomy and how this company is disrupting and re-energizing the ship industry in the United States, and so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.