In 2024, Lobster Robotics was one of 44 companies in DIANA’s inaugural cohort of innovators. Following six months of acceleration at the Tehnopol Startup Incubator — DIANA’s accelerator site in Estonia — the Lobster Robotics team was also one of the ten companies down-selected to continue into Phase 2 of DIANA’s Accelerator Programme. By developing mass-producible underwater drones that map the seabed in high-resolution, Lobster Robotics is helping improve our ability to see and map the seafloor — giving navies, wind-farm operators and cable owners, fast, affordable intelligence on what lies beneath.
Since completing the DIANA programme, the company has successfully leveraged their solution to live-map the North Sea seabed, in collaboration with NATO and Dutch security stakeholders. They also collaborated with the Estonian Navy, aiming to improve Baltic Sea surveillance and contributing to efforts aimed at rotating autonomous infrastructure-monitoring assets.
Launching the Scout with the Dutch Ministry of Defence
In one of their biggest milestones to date, on June 24, Lobster Robotics signed a prototyping contract with the Netherlands’ Ministry of Defence for the launch of their underwater drone, the Scout.
This collaboration will enable Lobster Robotics to refine their technology and accelerate its path to deployment. After allowing the Dutch Ministry of Defence to test and evaluate the Scout, Lobster Robotics will use the feedback to modify and adapt their technology, so that it can be used in military contexts by the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
The contract will therefore aim to achieve two separate objectives in the next 15–20 months: equipping the Dutch Navy with underwater drone capabilities as part of a system-of-systems approach, integrating both crewed and uncrewed platforms, whilst enabling Lobster Robotics to introduce a version of the Scout adapted to the defence market.
The partnership also marks a key milestone in advancing dual-use capabilities more generally, as it will aim to streamline development and support faster procurement processes within national security and defence.
How DIANA inspired Lobster Robotics to enter the dual-use space
“Securing this prototyping contract with the Netherlands would not have been possible without our participation in DIANA,” said Stephan Rutten, CEO of Lobster Robotics.
The Dutch start-up operated exclusively in the offshore wind technology sector before deciding to pivot towards the dual-use space. When they came across DIANA’s Challenge Call, they realised the Sensing and Surveillance challenge perfectly described the issue they were already trying to solve in the civilian space — prompting them to submit a proposal to join the programme.
For a young company like Lobster Robotics, achieving a problem-solution fit in the defence sector is challenging, as it is difficult to know who to approach and engage with to better understand the needs and procurement processes in the sector. But DIANA played a pivotal role in bridging this gap.
By clearly defining the problem through its challenges, it opened the door for Lobster Robotics to enter the defence space and helped them tailor their solution to meet real operational needs.
Towards faster adoption
The partnership between Lobster Robotics and the Dutch Ministry of Defence will feed into NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan, as the Netherlands will share lessons learned and best practices resulting from the project with interested Allies and relevant NATO entities.
In this way, the partnership is likely to serve as a catalyst for broader, more rapid adoption from other NATO Allies seeking similar technologies.