Valstad Shipworks is an Austin, Texas startup shipyard building American-made commercial vessels, starting with the inland fleet and ranging from barges to tankers. It is rebuilding the shipbuilding process around phased-array laser welding and modular robotic cells that autonomously perform primary stiffening, micropanel and T-beam fabrication, and material handling. The company closed a $2.6M pre-seed led by N49P in July 2025 to design its first shipyard, and has said it plans to begin cutting steel and stand up a full robotic production line rather than a prototype. Its stated goal is to make its first vessel roughly 30% cheaper than anything on the market through design for manufacturability and repeatable production.