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43 results for “autonomy”
Active Inference Autonomy Research Contract
UK Ministry of Defence / Royal Navy · £120,000 · Awarded 2021-12-13
UK MOD / Royal Navy (Navy Command) single-source service contract, awarded 13 December 2021, to demonstrate Stanhope AI's active-inference approach to autonomous decision-making in a simulated setting. One of the company's first defence contracts, won in its founding year — Stanhope AI Ltd was incorporated 16 March 2021, not spun out in 2023 (the '2023' date comes from UCL portfolio pages only; Companies House and the company's own site both say 2021).
Army UxS Autonomy Contract — Infantry Squad Vehicle
U.S. Army · Up to $150M in potential follow-on procurement contracts contingent on successful demonstration (initial award value undisclosed) · Awarded 2025-08-29
Contract to integrate Scout AI's Fury autonomy stack onto Army Infantry Squad Vehicles, with up to $150M in potential follow-on procurement.
Babcock ARMOR Force - Royal Navy Autonomy Layer
UK Royal Navy · Undisclosed · Awarded 2025-12-08
Partnership with Babcock International to supply Arondite's Cobalt Operating System for the Royal Navy's ARMOR Force programme.
Blue Water Autonomy
Boston, Massachusetts, USA · Founded 2024 · $64M ($14M seed + $50M Series A) raised
Builds large, open-ocean autonomous surface vessels for the US Navy.
CDAO Autonomy Enterprise Platform (AEP)
Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) / OUSD R&E · $171.1M · Awarded 2025-01-14
Production OTA (up to $171.1M over 3 years) for Applied Intuition Defense to develop, update, and sustain all-domain autonomous systems infrastructure DoD-wide.
CDAO Autonomy Factory
Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) · · Operational
DoD-wide initiative run by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to consolidate autonomous-systems development, data, and vendor tooling into a shared production pipeline; Applied Intuition is the platform provider.
DoD AI & Autonomy T&E Blanket Purchase Agreement
Army Contracting Command Rock Island / DoD · $249M ceiling · Awarded 2024-08-21
Multi-award, $249M-ceiling BPA to supply AI and autonomy test & evaluation software to the DoD's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, military services, and other federal agencies.
Enterprise Autonomy Pipeline (Autonomy Factory)
CDAO / Department of War · Undisclosed · Awarded 2026-05-14
Applied Intuition selected by the Department of War's CDAO to build a shared, production-grade software pipeline (the 'Autonomy Factory') for developing, validating, and certifying autonomous systems DoD-wide.
Heterogeneous Autonomy Prototyping and Execution
U.S. Navy · $84.7M · Awarded 2024-09-12
Navy contract for swarming autonomy research from attritable autonomous vehicles.
Perennial Autonomy
Menlo Park, California, USA · Founded 2023 · raised
Menlo Park counter-drone company building the Merops interceptor, combat-proven against Russian Shahed one-way attack drones in Ukraine.
Rapid Experimental Missionized Autonomy (REMA)
DARPA · $25M (total, across multiple awards) · Spiral-challenge structure; first spiral began Dec 2023
DARPA program adding mission autonomy to commercial/small military drones.
USSOCOM C-130J Autonomy Production IDIQ
US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) · $105M · Awarded 2024-06-11
$105M USSOCOM IDIQ for Merlin to develop a production-ready reduced-aircrew autonomy capability (Merlin Pilot) on SOF C-130J Super Hercules aircraft.
Alberto Lacaze
Founder, Chairman & President, Forterra · Clarksburg, MD
Founder, Chairman, and President of Forterra (formerly Robotic Research). BS Electrical Engineering and BS Computer Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology; MS Electrical Engineering, Drexel University. Former staff engineer at NIST. Holds 100+ patents in ground-robotics autonomy.
Anduril Industries
Costa Mesa, CA · Founded 2017 · $11.4B raised
Autonomy-first defense products company building hardware and the Lattice software platform.
Applied Intuition
Sunnyvale, CA · Founded 2017 · $1.2B raised
Vehicle intelligence and simulation software company expanding into defense with autonomy products for DoD programs.
Army UxS Program — Autonomous Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV)
U.S. Army · $4.8M · Awarded 2025-08-29
$4.8M U.S. Army UxS Program contract for autonomy on the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV).
Artificial Intelligence Reinforcements (AIR)
DARPA · $17.3M (initial + Option 1, STR) · Option 1
DARPA program developing AI-driven multi-ship BVR air-combat autonomy teaming crewed F-16s with uncrewed aircraft.
Austin Gray
Co-founder & CSO, Blue Water Autonomy · Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Blue Water Autonomy.
Ben Saunders
Co-founder & CEO · United Kingdom
Record-breaking British polar explorer who co-founded and leads Arctic Research & Development, building high-latitude autonomy technology.
D3 VC
Kyiv, Ukraine · $30M+ AUM · Est. 2023
Early-stage venture fund focused on Ukrainian and allied defense technology (drones, EW, autonomy, sensors, AI); launched 2023 by Eveline Buchatskiy, Anton Verkhovodov, and Elya Chiechienieva, backed by investors including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Participated in Uforce's $50M seed round and Cambridge Aerospace's ~$130M raised to date.
Darkhive
San Antonio, TX · Founded 2021 · $25M ($4M seed + $21M Series A) raised
San Antonio tactical-autonomy and edge-software company for small UAS; largest single APFIT award to date.
DARPA RACER
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) · · Concluded (Jan 2026) — transitioned to commercial spinouts
DARPA's Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency program, developing off-road autonomous driving technology; Overland AI co-founders Byron Boots (PI) and Greg Okopal (Co-PI) led this work at the University of Washington before founding the company, and it underlies Overland AI's ULTRA autonomy stack.
Forterra
Clarksburg, MD · Founded 2002 · $541M raised
Maryland-based autonomous ground-vehicle and mission-autonomy company (formerly Robotic Research), valued above $1B after a $238M Series C.
GEARS (Ground Expeditionary Autonomous Retrofit System) — Phase II
U.S. Army · Undisclosed · Awarded 2025-11-01
Phase II award for palletized-load autonomy under the Army's GEARS (Ground Expeditionary Autonomous Retrofit System) program, announced alongside — but separate from — Forterra's ~$114M 'Sandhills' autonomous-breaching prime contract and a $4.8M UxS contract; GEARS Phase II's own value has not been publicly disclosed.
GV
Mountain View, California, USA · ~$10-13B AUM (Alphabet is sole LP; ~400 active portfolio companies) AUM · Est. 2009
Alphabet's venture capital arm, investing across enterprise, hard tech, and defense-adjacent robotics/autonomy.
HavocAI
Providence, RI · Founded 2024 · $285M raised
Collaborative multi-domain autonomy software and unmanned surface vessels for defense.
Infinite Capital
West Palm Beach, FL · Not publicly disclosed AUM · Est. 2023
Deep tech and crypto venture firm investing in generational innovation across aerospace, autonomy, and decentralized networks.
Karl Murphy
Co-Founder & VP, Forterra · Clarksburg, MD
Co-founder and Vice President of Forterra (formerly Robotic Research). MS Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon (1984); BS Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech (1981). At NIST, was Technical Lead for the Demo I/II/III/III+ DoD autonomy programs, precursors to the Future Combat Systems and PerceptOR programs.
Liam Krut
Investment Partner, Reinforced Ventures · Pittsburgh, PA
Investment Partner at fund:reinforced-ventures, leading due-diligence on early-stage robotics, autonomy, and biotechnology deals; prior founder of a biotechnology company and a cybersecurity company, with a computational biology research background spanning Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, and MIT.
MADIS Production Contract — Autonomous Ground Vehicles
U.S. Marine Corps, Program Manager Ground Based Air Defense · $19,744,499 · Awarded 2026-06-26
Production contract for ULTRA autonomous ground vehicles supporting the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) for resupply/logistics; Overland AI states this is the first ground-autonomy company to prime a DoD production contract. Initial deliveries expected early 2027, full delivery by October 2027.
Mike Tinmouth
COO, co-founder · United Kingdom
Co-founder and COO of Acua Ocean, a UK maritime autonomy company.
Neil Tinmouth
CEO, co-founder · London, UK
Co-founder and CEO of Acua Ocean, a UK maritime autonomy company.
Overland AI
Seattle, Washington, USA · Founded 2022 · $142M raised
Seattle-based builder of ULTRA, an autonomous ground-vehicle platform for off-road military logistics/resupply and ground autonomy.
Pentagon Counter-Drone IDIQ Contract
U.S. Department of Defense · $500,000,000 · Awarded 2026-05-19
IDIQ contract awarding Perennial Autonomy up to $500M for counter-drone (Merops interceptor) systems.
Polar Mist
Lund, Sweden · Founded 2023 · raised
Swedish maritime-autonomy startup building Semper, an unmanned surface vessel with a proprietary optical/vision-based, GPS-free navigation system for contested environments.
Rylan Hamilton
Co-founder & CEO, Blue Water Autonomy · Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Co-founder & CEO of Blue Water Autonomy.
Scott N. Miller
Co-founder & CTO, Blue Water Autonomy · Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Co-founder & CTO of Blue Water Autonomy.
Seasats
San Diego, CA, USA · Founded 2020 · $40M+ (as of $20M Series A, Feb 2026) raised
Builds small uncrewed surface vessels for maritime autonomy, port security, and coastal patrol.
Steve Messinger
Co-Founder & CTO, Perseus Defense · Buda, TX
Co-founder and CTO of Perseus Defense. MS aerospace engineering, Penn State, where he met co-founder Jason Cornelius; a swarm-robotics researcher and competition winner. At Boeing, built autonomy software enabling aircraft to land themselves; also developed collaborative-behavior software for unmanned boats and one-way attack drones for the U.S. military.
Swarmer
Austin, TX, United States · Founded 2023 · $17.7M (pre-IPO) raised
Ukrainian AI software platform for coordinated multi-drone swarm autonomy, now Nasdaq-listed.
The Fourth Law
Kyiv, Ukraine · Founded 2023 · raised
Ukrainian AI autonomy modules for FPV drones that hold terminal guidance under electronic warfare.
venom
DARPA / US Air Force · Undisclosed · Flight testing
Joint DARPA/US Air Force program retrofitting legacy F-16s with an autonomy kit for AI-controlled flight, under DARPA's Air Combat Evolution effort.
Zydro Marine Technologies
Newton, Massachusetts · Founded 2025 · $2.36M raised
Boston-based maritime autonomy startup building modular hardware and software building blocks for autonomous fleets at sea.