High-technology offshore wind company and Decom Mission member Rovco, has today announced its merger with Vaarst to create a new brand – Beam.
In uniting their industry leading capabilities across research, development, and deployment, Beam provides an unrivalled offering in cutting-edge automation technologies. Through its mission to automate offshore wind, these innovations deliver efficiencies and reduced costs for survey and subsea work across all lifecycle stages.
Rovco and Vaarst have been at the forefront of developing and deploying AI and autonomy enabled services in the offshore wind sector. Under the unified Beam brand, this shared mission continues, with the goal of helping offshore wind become more reliable, efficient, and cost-effective – improving its commercial viability compared to oil and gas.
The cutting-edge technologies that have made Rovco and Vaarst industry technology leaders in the survey and subsea sector remain at the core of the new brand offering. Beam builds on their combined years of AI driven operational expertise and focuses on industry-defining R&D and transformative partnerships to deliver new industry-leading innovations.
Rovco was founded by Brian Allen in 2016, with technology spin-off Vaarst later launched by Allen in 2021. The decision to unite the companies under one name follows several years of rapid growth and will support future technological ambitions. Allen will continue in the CEO role at Beam, with the merger of the two companies creating a combined workforce of over 200 employees.
Beam is set for further expansion in the coming year, hiring over 150 new employees across the UK in a variety of high-technology roles at its Bristol, Aberdeen and Edinburgh offices. Global growth will also see Beam recruit an additional 50 positions in other global markets, including 25 in the US and 10 in Asia.
Brian Allen, CEO of Beam, stated: “Piecemeal policymaking, supply chain issues and the rising workforce shortage have created hurdles in the green energy transition and fuelled a continued reliance on oil and gas. It’s never been more important to find ways to cut costs and project timelines. This merger under a united brand makes Beam the only company in the world with a unique combination of subsea AI, computer vision, sonar and autonomous advanced robotics. Our mission is to deliver real world impact in the offshore wind industry by making it cost competitive with oil and gas, which is a pivotal step in ending the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.”