Pure Watercraft Founder Launches Defense Startup Thallios

More than a year after the closure of Pure Watercraft, founder Andy Rebele is back with a new venture that shifts his focus from electric recreational boating to autonomous military technology. His latest startup, Thallios, is developing autonomous marine vehicles designed to support defense operations, marking a significant change from the clean-energy mission that defined his previous company.

Speaking about the new venture, Rebele said Thallios builds on the legacy of Pure Watercraft while taking advantage of technology originally developed for military applications.

“This is a company that’s born out of the legacy of Pure Watercraft,” Rebele said.

Founded after Pure Watercraft shut down and sold its assets, Thallios has acquired the company’s military-focused intellectual property. According to Rebele, the new startup also inherited a partially completed contract with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), allowing the company to continue work that began under Pure.

Based in Seattle, though incorporated in Texas, Thallios is developing small autonomous surface vessels that could take the form of boats or personal watercraft similar to Jet Skis. These unmanned vehicles are expected to serve a variety of defense purposes, including transporting supplies between locations and carrying out one-way military missions.

Rebele said electric propulsion remains an option for the new craft, but the company’s primary goal is to create affordable and scalable autonomous systems that can be rapidly deployed in military environments.

He compared the vision for Thallios to the growing role of aerial drones in modern warfare, pointing to recent developments in Ukraine where low-cost unmanned systems have transformed battlefield operations.

“The way to think about this is analogous to the airborne drone theater,” Rebele explained. “If you look at Ukraine, what has revolutionized war fighting in the last two or three years has been that small attritable drones have dominated.”

The new direction is a major departure from Pure Watercraft, which was established in 2011 with the goal of replacing traditional gasoline-powered boat motors with electric alternatives for recreational boaters.

During its lifetime, Pure Watercraft raised $37 million in funding and attracted investment from General Motors, which acquired a 25% stake in the startup in November 2021. The company also earned industry recognition, winning Sustainable Innovation of the Year at the 2023 GeekWire Awards.

Despite those achievements, Pure Watercraft struggled financially. Following the launch of its Pure Pontoon electric boat, the company entered receivership in July 2024, ultimately leading to the sale of its assets.

Reflecting on the company’s collapse, Rebele acknowledged that while General Motors’ decision played a role, Pure Watercraft also faced internal execution challenges.

“I really haven’t gone into depth on what happened with Pure, but I will say that its failure, while precipitated in the moment by an action by GM, a lot of responsibility for that was failures of execution by Pure,” he said. “And if we were to do it again, there are many things I would do differently.”

One major advantage for Thallios is that the company currently does not need to seek outside investment. Rebele said the existing Defense Innovation Unit contract provides sufficient funding to support operations, allowing him to focus on building products instead of spending time raising capital.

“We have no need to raise money, because the current military contract funds the company,” he said, noting that many startup founders spend the majority of their time meeting with investors.

Looking ahead, Thallios will enter an increasingly competitive defense technology sector. The Seattle region is already home to several military-focused startups, including Overland AI, which develops autonomous ground vehicles, Echodyne, known for advanced radar systems, and Exia Labs, which builds AI software for defense simulations. Earlier this year, the Defense Technology Accelerator also launched in Renton to help startups develop technologies that meet U.S. Department of Defense needs.

Rather than competing through expensive, high-end military hardware, Rebele believes success will come from building lower-cost autonomous systems that can be produced quickly and at scale.

“We can’t have our Lamborghinis fighting their VW Beetles,” he said. “I think it’s tempting for new defense tech companies to slip down that slope.”

With Thallios, Rebele is aiming to apply lessons learned from Pure Watercraft while addressing the growing demand for affordable autonomous marine technology in the defense sector. The startup’s existing government contract and inherited military technology provide it with an early foundation as it begins its next chapter.

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