A South Philadelphia startup called Albacore is manufacturing underwater military drones in a former marble and granite showroom on Washington Avenue, less than two years after the company was founded.

Albacore has received more than $10 million in investments and holds a contract to supply the U.S. Navy, with deliveries also planned for Taiwan and other buyers the company declined to identify. Federal officials from the Small Business Administration and the Department of War toured the facility Tuesday to highlight the economic impact of small defense firms.

From a Rittenhouse apartment to a 20,000-square-foot factory

Albacore was founded about 20 months ago after cofounder Dante Vaisbort moved from Los Angeles to Philadelphia and teamed up with John Huddleston, who was attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School MBA program and lived near Rittenhouse Square.

Huddleston said the early prototypes took over his apartment.

“We started building prototypes, and all of a sudden we had taken over my entire apartment. I took my couch out of the apartment, and it became a wall of 3D printers and parts. We started assembling this prototype on my kitchen table.”

Huddleston subsequently dropped out of Wharton. The company got backing from Y Combinator, a startup accelerator and venture capital firm, and attracted additional investment led by Outlander VC and several other U.S. and foreign investors. Four months ago, Albacore moved into the 20,000-square-foot former Colonial Marble & Granite showroom at 20th Street and Washington Avenue.

The Ghostfin drone and its capabilities

Albacore’s product, called Ghostfin, is about 8 feet long when fully assembled, weighs 425 pounds and can last 30 days in the water. The company says it can travel 1,000 nautical miles and carry a 250-pound weapons payload designed to destroy military ships.

“The technology that we are developing here is basically a scaled-down version of what was used in World War II submarines,” Vaisbort said. “We have basically the shrunk-down version of what was used in World War II, but in a mass-producible, autonomous form factor.”

The devices were initially tested in the Schuylkill River and more recently in Florida. Beyond military use, the vehicles can also be used for commercial surveys of oil and gas areas, mineral surveys on the sea floor and oceanic research data collection, Huddleston said.

Huddleston said the company was created to fill a gap in unmanned undersea technology that became apparent after the war in Ukraine started.

“We’ve seen companies manufacturing quadcopters, but there really hasn’t been something in the equivalent for the undersea. That’s where we saw this massive gap, and created this product to really address that issue.”

Hiring plans and Philadelphia’s maritime momentum

Albacore has 25 people on staff and employs additional contractors and technicians. The company plans to at least triple its headcount over the next year, the founders said. Workers include recent high school and college graduates as well as experienced staff from other aerospace manufacturers.

Andrew Wong, Albacore’s associate director of federal affairs, said the work is accessible.

“We want to give young people a chance to build something great for the country. It’s a job that anyone can do, really. It’s almost like building Legos, very complicated Legos, albeit.”

Vaisbort cited Philadelphia’s long shipbuilding history and recent investments in Hanwha Philly Shipyard and the Port of Philadelphia as factors that drew the company here. Last month, Hanwha was selected for a $2 billion project to build two missile-tracking vessels for the U.S. military.

Albacore intends to initially build 75 vehicles per year at the South Philadelphia facility and would like to eventually produce several thousand units. The company’s website lists a dozen job openings, including for mechanical, electrical and software engineers.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said during the tour that the U.S. defense industrial base consists of 70 percent small businesses.

“We have half a million jobs open in manufacturing today, and that’s why this administration is focusing on rebuilding the industrial base, because it provides not just national security, but economic opportunity.”