Overland AI, a Seattle-based pioneer in off-road ground vehicle autonomy for the defense sector, announced it has raised $10 million in seed funding, led by Point72 Ventures with participation from Shasta Ventures, Ascend VC, Pioneer Square Labs, Voyager Capital, and Cubit Capital.
Along with fueling Overland AI’s plans to increase its workforce with an emphasis on hiring top engineering talent. The funding will support expanded development and testing of the company’s OverDrive software, a vehicle-agnostic solution that enables autonomous navigation of off-road terrain in any environmental conditions at speeds up to 45 mph.
This technology is poised to meet a growing demand for autonomous off-road capabilities — especially in the defense sector, where emerging innovations are accelerating the pace of advanced robotics adoption to enhance safety in the field.
The U.S. Army and Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) also recently awarded a $18.6 million ceiling prototype Other Transaction (OT) agreement to Overland AI to adapt its OverDrive technology to drive autonomous vehicles capable of traversing complex terrain in contested areas. Overland AI was recently selected as a performer in Phase II of the DARPA RACER program to continue advanced capability development and demonstration of OverDrive in operationally relevant terrain.
These demonstrations feature OverDrive integrated into heavy-tracked platforms similar in size to forthcoming robotic and optionally manned combat/fighting vehicles and the lightweight wheeled vehicles already in use.
The Overland AI team has a history of working on off-road autonomy problems in a research capacity before forming the company. Along with his role as CEO of Overland AI, Boots is the Amazon Endowed Professor of Machine Learning at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). Boots’ Robot Learning Lab at UW has pioneered new machine-learning approaches to robotics and control and has collaborated with the U.S. Army Research Lab and DARPA on several research programs over the past 10 years.
KEY QUOTE:
“We are committed to the advancement of ground vehicle autonomy to support national security and minimize risk to our warfighters. With this funding, we can accelerate development and create high-performance ground autonomy software designed for uncrewed vehicles in any contested terrain.”
- Byron Boots, co-founder and CEO of Overland AI
