Applied Intuition

Applied Intuition built its business on the unsexy infrastructure of autonomous vehicles: the simulation, validation and data-management software that carmakers use to test self-driving systems before they reach a road. Founded in 2017 and based in Mountain View, California, under chief executive Qasar Younis, a former chief operating officer of Y Combinator, the company says it works with most of the world’s largest automakers. Over the past few years it has pushed that same tooling into defence.

Its defence arm, Applied Intuition Defense, builds simulation and autonomy software for what it calls all-domain autonomous systems, including products it markets as a Self-Driving System and a Vehicle OS. The work is concrete: the company has demonstrated taking a US Army infantry squad vehicle from “bare bones” to autonomous operation in ten days, fitting a robot to physically work the pedals, with the effort tied to the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program. In early 2025 it was selected for a Pentagon Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office production contract worth up to $171 million over three years to build a department-wide environment for developing, testing and fielding autonomy programs.

In February 2025 Applied Intuition acquired EpiSci , an AI-autonomy firm whose software featured in the US Air Force’s first dogfight between an AI-piloted fighter and a human-piloted aircraft, extending the company’s reach from ground vehicles into air, sea and space; EpiSci’s co-founders stayed on to run it as a subsidiary. Investor enthusiasm followed: a $600 million Series F in June 2025 valued the company at $15 billion, up from $6 billion roughly a year earlier, with the round co-led by BlackRock-managed funds and Kleiner Perkins. The raise, unusually large for an autonomy-software firm, underlined how far defence demand has moved the company beyond its automotive roots.