The Spark

As a mechanical engineering student at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Grace Chia held a strong conviction in autonomous robotics as powerful tools capable of transforming the way things were done. Around the same time, Goh Eng Wei was pursuing computer engineering at NUS, drawn to the same interest from the software side. Grace later founded Bumblebee, an NUS robotics club, where she met Eng Wei.

A Promising Signal

In 2013, their team won the Best New Entry award in RoboSub, an international autonomous maritime robotics competition in the US, validating the team’s capability.

Cementing the Gap

After graduation, Grace spent five years in the corporate world selling human-operated underwater vehicles, and realized how autonomous systems could cut the cost and complexity of underwater data. Eng Wei, a full-time combat officer who pursued autonomous underwater robotics as a passion project on the side, reached the same conclusion from a different angle after witnessing the riskiness of traditional underwater operations performed by human divers.

The Founding

In 2018, with a shared understanding of how autonomous drones could revolutionize the underwater industry, Grace and Eng Wei established BeeX as the company’s respective CEO and CTO, utilizing the foundation and technical autonomous breakthroughs achieved with their club-era technology into a fully operational product.

Transforming Underwater Capabilities at Scale

BeeX now designs and operates a fleet of fully autonomous underwater drones built for inspections across defense, energy, and coastal infrastructure. What began as a response to an industry-scale dilemma is now a proven capability, deployed in some of the world's most demanding subsea environments.