Scorpa's Tech @ Sea

WSense: Spearheading the ‘Underwater Internet’ for Maritime Innovation

3–5 minutes

Image Credit: spectrum.ieee.org

Ocean monitoring is crucial for environmental protection, infrastructure safety, aquaculture health, and climate research. However, customers across these sectors face persistent pain points: conventional technologies rely heavily on costly and fragile cables, intermittent satellite or surface-based links, and manual data retrieval, which together lead to high operational costs, delayed insights, limited scalability, and gaps in data continuity particularly in remote or deep-sea environments. These challenges hinder the ability of researchers, aquaculture operators, and offshore infrastructure managers to make timely, data-driven decisions.

WSense’s Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) addresses these challenges by enabling real-time, long-lasting, wireless data transmission between underwater sensors, sea-floor devices, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and cloud platforms. In an era where sustainable ocean management and smart aquaculture are increasingly vital, WSense offers continuous, cable-free monitoring, which is particularly essential for critical seabed infrastructure, remote environmental monitoring, and marine ecosystem management.

WSense was co-founded by Chiara Petrioli, a Professor of Computer Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome, who has been a pioneer in underwater networking research since 2012, leading to the spin-off of the company from academic research. Under her leadership as CEO, WSense has grown to employ more than 50 specialists across R&D, hardware/software development, and business operations, with plans to double its workforce to meet global demand. 

On the funding side, WSense has secured over €22 million through multiple rounds, including a €4M seed round in 2022, an €11M Series A round in November 2023 led by SWEN Blue Ocean, CDP Ventures, RunwayFBU, Axon Partners, Katapult Ocean, CoreAngels, and Rypples, and a €7.2M Pre-Series B round in April 2025 supported by the same investors. Additionally, Fincantieri has provided a €2.5M convertible loan investment in 2025, with an option to increase the amount, marking WSense as a strategically significant player in naval, aquaculture, and deep-sea industries.

WSense offers hardware and software enabling wireless communication up to 3,000 m depth, using acoustic multi-hop networking and mesh architectures. Typical deployments include:

  • Aquaculture: Fish cage monitoring (position, stress, heart rate), environmental sensors (oxygen, salinity, pH), optimizing feeding and welfare with digital twins.
  • Infrastructure & Energy: Surveillance of undersea cables, offshore platforms, maritime renewables; structural stress data for construction monitoring (e.g. Terna submarine works).
  • Scientific & Environmental Monitoring: Climate-driven seabed sensors, pollution detection, biodiversity assessments. 

This improves operational safety, lowers costs by eliminating cables, and enables continuous insight for seafarers, researchers, and firms.

WSense’s technology is built on its Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) platform, which enables real time, wireless data transmission in the ocean by using acoustic communication and multi-hop mesh networking. At the core of the system is the W-Pico, a compact (1×6 cm), ultra low power acoustic modem and sensing unit, which connects to other underwater devices and relays data to the W-Gateway, a surface or buoy-based unit that transfers information to cloud platforms for real-time monitoring and analytics. 

Image Credit: WSense

WSense’s technology has been successfully applied in various maritime sectors, demonstrating its versatility and impact. In aquaculture, companies like Leroy Seafood Group use WSense’s W-Pico sensors to monitor fish behavior, heart rate, and environmental conditions, optimizing feeding strategies and improving animal welfare. For infrastructure monitoring, Terna employs WSense systems to track environmental parameters and structural integrity during submarine cable installations, ensuring operational safety and environmental compliance. The company has also collaborated with Fincantieri to develop advanced underwater communication networks for naval and submarine applications, highlighting its relevance in defense and offshore industries. 

In essence, WSense is transforming how the maritime industry collects and uses underwater data. By combining cutting-edge technology, strategic partnerships, and strong investor confidence, the company is leading the way toward smarter, safer, and more sustainable ocean management, playing a vital role in shaping the future of the blue economy.

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