Apeiron Labs, whose fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles gives defense, intelligence, and maritime users real-time ocean data at a fraction of the cost of current solutions, today announced that Rob Rainhart has been named Chief Executive Officer. Co-founder Ravi Pappu, who has led the company as CEO since its inception, has moved to Chief Technology Officer to focus full-time on the product and engineering roadmap as Apeiron Labs scales. Pappu, the former CTO of In-Q-Tel, and Rainhart will both serve on the Board of Directors.

Rainhart brings deep experience scaling technology companies for defense and intelligence applications. As one of HawkEye 360’s earliest employees, he helped take the company from a pre-launch startup to a space-intelligence business that, by the time of its IPO, had more than 30 satellites in orbit and $100M+ in revenue, ultimately serving as President and COO. Most recently, he was COO of Auterion, a drone autonomy software company. His experience in scaling networks of autonomous systems will be critical as Apeiron Labs expands ocean intelligence for government and commercial customers.

The appointment comes as Apeiron Labs grows its fleet to meet rising demand for persistent ocean data across defense and intelligence missions. Its autonomous underwater vehicles transmit real-time observations via satellite for rapid decision-making. Apeiron Labs has logged thousands of hours of subsurface sensing this year. Under multiple contracts with U.S. government agencies, including NAVSEA and research partners, the company has collected data across the Pacific, Caribbean, and Atlantic to support maritime domain awareness, undersea operations, mission planning, and weather forecasting.

“At HawkEye 360, I helped enable a network of highly proliferated space sensors to turn an invisible domain into one you could see and act on every day. The subsea ocean is the largest domain left,” said Rainhart. “I’m very excited by the opportunity in front of the business.”

“Rob adds the commercial experience and operational focus we need to accelerate what we’ve built,” said Pappu. “The oceans remain among the least observed parts of our planet. Our solution changes that, and the traction we’re seeing with customers demonstrates how valuable these insights have become.”

“Apeiron Labs has reached the point where the technology is validated, and the focus now is scaling to meet demand. The Board believes Rob is exactly the right leader for this next phase, and his appointment allows Ravi to return full-time to the technical frontier,” said Sanjeev Krishnan, Managing Partner at S2G Investments and a member of the Apeiron Labs Board of Directors.

Looking ahead, Apeiron Labs is expanding its field operations and customer programs to support larger, longer-running missions, and is hiring across engineering, field operations, and go-to-market roles.