Applied Intuition is turning vehicle intelligence into defense autonomy infrastructure

Applied Intuition raised $600 million through a Series F and tender offer at a $15 billion valuation on June 17, 2025. BlackRock-managed funds and Kleiner Perkins co-led the round, which followed its Series E at a $6 billion valuation just over a year earlier. Source

In May 2025, Applied launched Axion and Acuity for all-domain autonomy across air, land, sea, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Axion gives engineers and operators a shared environment to build, test, and deploy autonomy; Acuity provides onboard autonomy for unmanned systems.

Applied was founded in 2017 by Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig. Younis previously served as chief operating officer at Y Combinator after founding a company acquired by Google; Applied says Ludwig previously helped build Android Automotive at Google. The company built its early reputation on vehicle-intelligence tools and now says it serves 18 of the top 20 global automakers and major Department of Defense programs.

Applied acquired EpiSci before launching Acuity, and the company says EpiSci advances have been deployed on systems including the X-62A VISTA fighter jet for autonomous air-to-air combat tests. The result is a defense stack that connects simulation tooling, onboard autonomy, and mission software rather than a single vehicle platform.

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