Frontier hardware moving at a software pace: Our Investment in Poseidon Aerospace

A New Logistics Layer Over the Water

Every major shift in global transportation has been defined by new hardware. Trains reshaped continents, cargo jets rewrote delivery time, and container ships rewired supply chains. Today, a new layer is emerging above the ocean: fast, autonomous seagliders that skim just over the water’s surface — and Poseidon Aerospace is leading the movement.

Cargo still moves across oceans the way it did decades ago: slow ships if you have ports, expensive aircraft if you have runways. But the world is shifting toward island chains, offshore energy, and distributed coastal markets — places where neither mode works well. Poseidon is building a third option: unmanned aircraft that fly feet above the ocean, moving freight at airplane speed without pilots, runways, or air traffic control. It looks like aviation, operates like maritime, and opens routes the world has never had access to before.

Dual-Use by Design

Instead of retrofitting aging aircraft with autonomy, Poseidon is developing purpose-built platforms optimized for cost-per-flight-ton-mile — the metric that determines whether air cargo economics make sense. From day one, they have been engineered for both commercial and defense missions.

Their smaller platform, Seagull, already flies autonomously and is a natural fit for surveillance, resupply, and maritime security where runways don’t exist and infrastructure can’t be assumed. In parallel, Poseidon is preparing its larger aircrafts, Heron and Egret, designed to carry up to two tons of cargo thousands of miles from open water or short, unfinished strips. Remote islands, offshore rigs, and coastal communities suddenly become reachable at high speed and low cost.

Why Ground-Effect Matters

Ground-effect flight occupies a rarely explored corner of aerospace: low enough to cut drag and radar visibility, high enough to glide at speed. The result is massive gains in fuel efficiency and range, without the constraints of airports or air traffic corridors that slow traditional aviation. For the first time, coastal cargo can move quickly without the overhead of flying or the delay of seafreight.

The technology has been studied for decades, but Poseidon is among the first to make it truly viable — with modern autonomy, composite manufacturing, and a regulatory pathway that allows real-world deployment. The goal isn’t to replace ships or planes, but to create a new mode entirely — a logistics layer built for the gaps between continents and coastlines. The closest historical analogy might be the rise of drones, which didn’t replace helicopters or satellites, but opened an entirely new dimension of mobility. 

Frontier Hardware, Built Fast

Breakthrough hardware doesn’t happen because someone had a clever idea — it happens when a team can build, test, and ship real machines faster than anyone else. That’s what stands out about Poseidon. When we first met founder and CEO David Zagaynov, Poseidon had a flying demonstrator and a big ambition. Less than a year later, the team had full-scale composite molds completed, defense customers onboard, a D.C. office open, and a manufacturing facility in place.

This speed to execution is why we invested; In frontier hardware, pace is power – and Poseidon has it. 

The Future of Global Logistics

We believe autonomous maritime aircraft will become a foundational part of global logistics — not a niche experiment. As supply chains decentralize, defense shifts toward distributed systems, and coastal economies continue to grow, the world needs a faster way to move across the water. Poseidon is building it.

Category-defining companies are the ones that get into the sky (and in this case, just above the sea) first. We’re proud to back Poseidon Aerospace as they build the unmanned backbone of tomorrow’s logistics.

Learn more at poseidonaero.com.