Vatn Systems' SIGURD Selected in the Defense Innovation Unit's Mine Countermeasure Modernization Prize Challenge

Vatn Systems, a Veteran Ventures Capital Fund II portfolio company building autonomous underwater vehicles for the U.S. military, allied nations and commercial customers, announced on October 1 that it has won the Defense Innovation Unit's Mine Countermeasure Modernization Prize Challenge for its SIGURD system. Vatn was selected in the Near Surface and Volume Mine Engage Test and Evaluation segment alongside BeeX and BlackSea Technologies.

The challenge opened in May 2026 and sought modular, communication-resilient, rapidly fieldable capabilities to detect, reacquire and neutralize underwater mine threats. Vatn launched SIGURD in July, built in a matter of weeks by configuring the company's Skelmir S6 platform into a dedicated mine countermeasures system.

"Mine countermeasures has long been an underfunded and technically demanding mission in naval warfare, and DIU built this challenge to see which systems could perform under real mission conditions," said Nelson Mills, co-founder and CEO of Vatn Systems. "During DIU's evaluation, SIGURD autonomously detected, reacquired and neutralized mine threats the way operators would encounter them in the field."

"As the need for this capability grows more urgent, this win helps us accelerate our mission of delivering undersea superiority at scale," Mills said.

Defense Daily reported that the challenge moved from launch to Navy contracts in 92 days. The selection follows Vatn's August agreement with Taiwan's National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology and the July launch of SIGURD. Vatn Systems was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Rhode Island; Veteran Ventures Capital invested in the company through Fund II.

VVC's view: the detail worth drawing out is the calendar. DIU opened the challenge in May, Vatn configured SIGURD from the Skelmir S6 in a matter of weeks and launched it in July, and by Defense Daily's count the Navy had contracts in place 92 days after the challenge opened. That is the acquisition tempo the department has been promising, and Vatn's decision to build a modular, low-cost platform is what let the company meet it. Mine countermeasures has been an underfunded mission for a long time, as Nelson Mills says above, and a company that can field a credible answer in weeks is the kind we backed Vatn to be.

Sources: Vatn Systems release via PR Newswire; Defense Daily; Navy Times.

Image: Vatn Systems