Apeiron Labs, Cambridge, Mass., has named Rob Rainhart CEO as the ocean technology company expands its fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles for defense, intelligence, and commercial applications.
Co-founder Ravi Pappu, who has served as CEO since the company’s inception, will move into the chief technology officer role and focus on product development and engineering. Rainhart and Pappu will both remain on the company’s board.
Rainhart most recently served as chief operating officer of drone autonomy software company Auterion, Arlington, Va. He previously held president and COO roles at HawkEye 360, where he helped grow the space-based radio-frequency intelligence company from an early-stage startup into an operator of more than 30 satellites.
His appointment comes as Apeiron builds out deployments of its Tensor ocean-sensing platform. The system uses networks of autonomous underwater vehicles to collect upper-ocean data and transmit observations for applications including maritime domain awareness, undersea operations, mission planning, and weather forecasting.
Apeiron says its Tensor platform is designed for distributed autonomous sensing in the upper 400 meters of the ocean, with vehicles capable of station-keeping and persistent data collection.
The company said its vehicles have logged thousands of hours of subsurface sensing this year under multiple U.S. government contracts, including work with Naval Sea Systems Command and research partners. Operations have included data collection in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Atlantic.
Apeiron did not disclose the value or duration of those contracts.
“The subsea ocean is the largest domain left,” Rainhart said. “I'm very excited by the opportunity in front of the business.”
Pappu previously served as chief technology officer at In-Q-Tel before co-founding Apeiron. The company traces its origins to work begun in 2016 on ways to lower the cost of large-scale ocean observation and was formally co-founded by Applied Invention and S2G Investments in 2022.
“Rob adds the commercial experience and operational focus we need to accelerate what we’ve built,” Pappu said. “The oceans remain among the least observed parts of our planet.”
Apeiron said it is expanding field operations and customer programs to support larger and longer-duration missions while adding personnel in engineering, field operations, and business development.
