Autonomous vehicle software company Applied Intuition has raised $250 million in a round that values the startup at $6 billion, because it pushes to bring more artificial intelligence to the automotive, defense, construction and agriculture sectors.
The attention-popping funding round is the newest example of investor fervor for AI. Applied Intuition appears to have nailed a selected sweet spot for VCs who’re on the hunt for startups with AI products that cross into large industries with big budgets — defense being one hot area — with seemingly countless opportunities.
The Series E round was led by Lux Capital’s Bilal Zuberi, investor Elad Gil, and Porsche Investments Management, the sports automobile maker’s independent enterprise arm. Others joining the round were Andreessen Horowitz, Mary Meeker’s growth fund Bond, and even Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg. Lux Capital, Elad Gil, and Andreessen Horowitz all previously led funding rounds for Applied Intuition.
The fresh capital — all equity — will go toward funding “probably the most ambitious projects that we have now, without flooding the corporate and breaking our culture,” co-founder and CEO Qasar Younis told TechCrunch in an interview.
Founded in 2017, Applied Intuition creates software that automakers and others use to develop autonomous vehicle solutions. A few of that work involves creating simulations that permit customers test and re-test their perception and vehicle behavior systems, or helping them manage the reams of information involved in developing AVs.
“After they think like, ‘I even have this software or AI problem,’ we generally want them to take into consideration us,” Younis said. “Like we would like to be that first call.”
That approach appears to be succeeding: The corporate claims to work with “18 of the highest 20 automakers,” including General Motors (where Younis used to work before stints at Google and Y Combinator), Toyota and Volkswagen, in addition to autonomous vehicle startups like Gatik, Motional and Kodiak. The corporate also has a contract with the Army and Defense Innovation Unit.
Peter Ludwig, co-founder and CTO, told TechCrunch he thinks it’s “dangerous for an automaker to not partner with us in some ways due to just the sheer complexity and the impact that among the technology we’re working on.”
The brand new funding round comes at a time when development of autonomous vehicles is facing renewed scrutiny, with GM-owned Cruise mired in multiple investigations surrounding a pedestrian crash late last 12 months, Waymo’s first-ever software recall (and a recent minor crash with a cyclist), layoffs and other changes to the scope of among the most ambitious projects within the space.
The appetite for artificial intelligence, nevertheless, couldn’t be more ascendant. Younis, in an announcement, said that constructing more AI technology into its products will “exponentially speed up the production of next-generation vehicles.”
That might mean a variety of things, Younis told TechCrunch, like using AI to assist generate more dynamic simulated environments for firms to check their autonomous vehicles in. “Simulators, they’re extremely complex,” he said. “Now we have teams and teams of PhDs which are just sweating over these things all day long.” Applied Intuition can be working with among the buzzier technologies like large language models, Younis said, and “more speculative stuff that’s approaching more of the research domain.”
“When you had a world-class AI team pointed toward all the issues in automotive, there’s loads of low-hanging fruit,” Younis said.