Defence technology company Bulwark Dynamics has raised $6.8 million in seed funding from investors including SBI US Gateway Fund, Archetype Ventures, Nēnē Ventures and Onomichi Dockyard.
The company said the funding would support development and production of its autonomous landing craft, expansion of manufacturing capacity and testing in operationally representative environments.
Alongside the funding round, Bulwark Dynamics signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan-based Onomichi Dockyard covering serial production of the vessels. The companies are also discussing the establishment of a dedicated manufacturing site in Japan for unmanned surface vessels.
The partnership follows priorities outlined in the US Government's February 2026 America's Maritime Action Plan, which called for greater cooperation with allied shipbuilders to expand US maritime industrial capacity.
"Building unmanned systems at scale inside the theater, on the industrial base and supply chains an ally already has, does two things at once," said Chief Executive Officer Nhat Lieu. "It solves a problem the people running these missions have today, and it puts decades of allied know-how to work on American reindustrialization."
Earlier in 2026, Bulwark Dynamics demonstrated a full mission sequence using its 15-foot autonomous landing craft prototype, including autonomous transit, beaching, cargo offloading and retraction without human intervention.
The company is also developing 35-foot (10.67-metre) and 55-foot (16.76-metre) variants designed to carry one and two 20-foot (6.1-metre) equivalent units of containerised cargo, respectively, for military and civil relief operations.
Bulwark Dynamics is expanding its engineering, testing and business development teams at facilities in the US and Tokyo as it develops the vessels for production.