America’s Shipbuilding Gap
Dino Mavrookas, Co-Founder & CEO of Saronic, is building one of the fastest-growing defense companies in America. Valued at over $9B, Saronic has raised $2.6B, & is making the largest multi-billion-dollar bet on rebuilding America’s maritime industrial base.
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In Part II of our III-part series inside Saronic, Dino and I sit down to go deeper into the business, the market, and why America’s shipbuilding gap has become a national security problem.
China now outbuilds the U.S. 230 to 1. The U.S. Navy has roughly 290 ships despite Congress setting a 355-ship minimum in 2018, while the Navy now estimates it needs 381 manned ships alone.
Dino explains why Saronic believes autonomy, private capital, commercial shipbuilding, and a new generation of defense primes can change that equation.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Dino Mavrookas, Co-Founder & CEO at Saronic Technologies
(01:10) America's shipbuilding crisis
(03:33) Why Defense contracts move so slow
(06:43) Scaling one win at a time
(08:24) Why Defense needs the Private sector now
(09:38) The next wave of defense giants
(10:50) Building for both Military and Commercial
(14:28) Serving the Navy, Army, and beyond
(16:12) How China wins on price, not quality
(18:15) The Hypersonic missile deal
(20:58) From Private equity to founding Saronic
(25:02) The real story behind the name "Saronic"
(26:49) The next decade of American shipbuilding
(27:58) Where is the Maritime Industry headed?
(28:30) It's the people, not the capital
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The Case for Rebuilding American Shipbuilding
Part II of III. Dino Mavrookas, Co-Founder and CEO of Saronic, on the shipbuilding gap with China, the economics of the current naval fleet plan, and why the company is spending private capital ahead of the customer.
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Ship Ratio’d by China
Saronic sits at a valuation above $9B, has raised $2.6B, and recently announced Port Alpha, a $3B shipyard project in Brownsville, Texas. Mavrookas frames the company’s premise against the shipbuilding gap with China.
“China outbuilds the US 230 to 1.
The naval fleet that we have today is actually shrinking.”
The US fleet sits at roughly 290 ships. Congress set a statutory minimum of 355 in 2018. In 2024 the Navy revised its own requirement upward to 381, and that figure covers manned ships only, before accounting for the unmanned vessels the service expects to field.
Mavrookas argues the existing shipbuilding infrastructure in the country cannot support either number, which is the reason he gives for starting Saronic and for the company’s emphasis on production and manufacturing across Corsair, Mirage, Marauder and now Port Alpha.
Where the Money Actually Goes
The president’s budget request is $1.5T. The Department of War budget for FY26 sits closer to $1T. Mavrookas uses one line item from it to describe the distance between stated priority and allocation.
“1%… 1% went towards autonomy.
So that just gives you a sense of how far we actually have to go.”
Legacy program economics have moved in the same direction over the period. Aircraft carriers take more than 10 years to build, and the schedule has continued to slip. Mavrookas had been quoting $13B per carrier until he heard the president quote $19B at an event.
The Navy’s 30 year shipbuilding plan carries a similar arithmetic problem. Moving from 290 to 381 ships over three decades is priced at $1.2T, assuming the country can execute the plan at all. Saronic’s argument is that autonomous vessels deliver capability faster while removing hundreds of billions from that total.
What Has Changed & What Has Not
Mavrookas served 11 years in the SEAL teams, 5 of them on SEAL Team 6, and describes the current pace as the fastest he has seen the government move. He points to the $1.5T budget request, a maritime executive order with an accompanying action plan, and the Ships Act in Congress. The 1% autonomy figure is what he sets against it.
Saronic’s own path through the acquisition system has been incremental. The company demonstrated a capability, won on it, then took on a larger problem. Mavrookas credits the customer for moving in step, specifically on the multi-hundred million dollar Corsair contract announced in December 2025, which ran through DIU on a rapid acquisition track.
Without that record, he argues, the capital for Marauder and Port Alpha would not have followed. His view is that breaking through the bureaucracy requires companies to build first and demonstrate the capability rather than argue for it, a pattern he traces back through Anduril, Palantir and SpaceX.
The Commercial Base Is the Defense Base
The part Mavrookas argues gets overlooked is commercial shipbuilding, which he treats as the supply chain and workforce that naval programs draw on. Naval orders are bespoke and low volume, and he attributes the beginning of the current situation to the commercial industry disappearing, taking the supply chain & workforce with it.
The commercial numbers are further apart than the headline ratio suggests. On warships, the gap is narrower, with the US launching 5 to 10 per year against roughly 30 for China.
“They built over 1,000 commercial ships last year, & the United States built 5.”
China holds 57% of total global shipbuilding capacity. Mavrookas attributes it to subsidy across the stack, covering direct construction, raw materials, labor and shipyard financing, which supports sustained undercutting on price. The effect extends to allies, with South Korea and Japan, the next two largest shipbuilders, sourcing modules and labor from China on the commercial side.
Saronic’s product line is built to hold both markets. Corsair is positioned for port and harbor security and Coast Guard operations, Marauder opens into commercial logistics, and Port Alpha targets autonomy in container ships, tankers and roll-on/roll-off vessels. Those last categories are what resupplies a force in a conflict, which is the national security argument underneath the commercial revenue one.
Private Capital Ahead of the Customer
The Castelion partnership is Mavrookas’s example of how the model works in practice. Castelion is building containerized hypersonic missiles. He and Castelion CEO Bryon Hargis agreed to a test launch off the back of Marauder, put their teams and their own capital behind it, and brought the government in roughly 8 steps later.
“We’re actually gonna be able to launch a hypersonic missile off of the back of Marauder, which is an autonomous ship, before the Navy completes their first test of a hypersonic missile off of a manned vessel.”
Saronic runs similar commercial partnerships with Palantir, Path Robotics and NVIDIA. The financing behind it came from 8VC, which backed the company out of its Build program in 2022, followed by Caffeinated Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Elad Gil, and Kleiner Perkins on the most recent round.
Mavrookas describes this as the behavior the department is asking for, with the Secretary of War calling for companies to invest their own capital at scale and build for speed. His view is that the demonstration has to be undeniable rather than incrementally better before the system responds to it.
How Many Primes
The defense industrial base held somewhere around 55 to 60 primes in 1993. Consolidation took that to 5 as budgets contracted and the department forced the market together. Mavrookas expects a partial reversal, with the caveat that the answer depends on how a prime is defined. He uses direct contracting with the government at scale.
“I think you’ll see 5 to 10 really big, impactful companies scale over the next 5 to 10 years, and hopefully more.”
He is careful about what the traditional base still does. Cruisers, destroyers and carriers have a role, and the existing primes need continued investment. The argument is for companies built alongside them, covering platforms and technology the incumbents are not positioned to build.
His framing of naval power is historical, going back to World War II and the logistics ships built during it.
“What has typically just determined naval power is who can build the most ships. It’s not who can build the most exquisite, the most expensive, whose ships have the most on them in terms of payloads & weapons.”
The 10 Year Picture
Port Alpha is Saronic’s answer to the scale question. The company projects 10,000 jobs over 10 years, billions of dollars of investment, and a $160B economic impact in Brownsville and the surrounding region.
The second half of the answer is design. Removing the crew removes the requirement set that drives complexity, which Mavrookas describes as producing simpler ships, higher production rates, lower unit costs, and markets that were not previously serviceable.
He closed the conversation on it as his hottest take, saying he is fully convicted that the entire maritime industry, commercial included, ends up centered on autonomy.
Saronic is hiring!
Want more? Check out the series:
Part I: Austin HQ + Factory Tour
→ Listen on X, Spotify, YouTube, Apple
Part II: Sit-Down w/ CEO Dino Mavrookas
→ Listen on X, Spotify, YouTube, Apple
Part III: All 4 Co-Founders on Building a $9B Autonomous Prime
→ Listen on X, Spotify, YouTube, Apple
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