Applied Intuition Inc has raised a US$175m Series D financing round co-led by Elad Gil, Addition, and Coatue Management at a US$3.6bn valuation. Existing investors, including Semil Shah, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and Lux Capital, contributed significantly to the round, bringing Applied Intuition’s total capital raised to over US$350m. The company also announced an advisory board consisting of former automotive executives Rick Wagoner and Dieter Zetsche.
“Applied is building software to support a big shift in one of biggest consumer purchases—the car,” said Elad Gil, a serial entrepreneur, early investor, and Series D lead. “Applied’s software is growing to take on multiple aspects of the automotive industry. I’m excited by the work the team has been doing to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous vehicles.”
The funding round follows a year of significant growth for Applied Intuition, which works with the majority of the world’s top 10 largest auto makers. The company’s growth was fueled by an expansion into more areas of autonomous vehicle (AV) development and additional verticals beyond the automotive industry, such as logistics, warehousing and defense.
To develop safe, reliable autonomous systems, AV companies need to test against a near-infinite amount of possible events, manage enormous volumes of data, and demonstrate their system’s safety to regulatory bodies. Since 2017, Applied Intuition’s simulation products, such as Simian, Spectral and Orbis, have enabled AV companies to test their systems safely, affordably and at scale in virtual environments.
The company’s expanded product offerings, including Strada, Logstream and Basis, help engineering teams effectively train AV algorithms with real-world drive data, meet regulatory requirements, and prepare for commercial deployment.
The additional capital allows Applied Intuition to serve the increased demand for its software tools for autonomous system development, and accelerate its product development to support additional use cases across industries.
Automotive Advisory Board
Applied Intuition has also announced the formation of its advisory board that includes two former executives of global automotive companies: Rick Wagoner (former CEO and chair of General Motors), who served as GM’s CEO from June 2000 through March 2009; and Dieter Zetsche, a former chairman of the board of management of Daimler AG and former head of Mercedes-Benz, who has also held various areas of responsibility over DaimlerChrysler AG, and Daimler AG.
The board will provide strategic guidance as Applied Intuition continues building deep supplier relationships with auto makers.