Scout AI, a unmanned vehicle manufacturing and autonomy software startup, has fetched $15 million in seed capital from investors to mark its emergence from stealth mode.
Colby Adcock and Collin Otis launched Scout AI in August to bring together artificial intelligence and robotics technologies for use in defense missions.
In announcing the round Wednesday, Scout AI touts a backlog of multiple Defense Department contracts and flagship vision-language-action foundation model called Fury.
The company designed Fury as an embodied AI system that can perceive the physical world, interpret natural language and issue real-time motor commands to intelligent and autonomous robotic vehicles.
“Achieving warfighter-level versatility in robotic systems requires grounding AI in physical reality,” Otis said in a release. “By training our system on human-level behavior we make our AI embodied. Fury develops the kind of intelligence warfighters naturally have — situational, physical, and adaptive.”
The seed round was led by Align Ventures and Booz Allen Hamilton’s venture capital arm, which invests in promising young tech companies whose creations are seen as having potential for government usage.
Regarding Scout AI, Booz Allen Hamilton views the Fury system as a tool for both powering new autonomous systems and aiding in the modernization of existing systems. The idea is to further integrate advanced AI into defense robotics, which would result in a more physical form of AI.
“Leveraging vision-language-action (VLA) models, Scout AI’s approach to autonomy enables versatile robotic systems that better handle the long tail of edge cases present on the battlefield while also offering a more human-centric user experience for robotic control,” James Gadea, a Booz Allen Ventures leader, said in a release. “Service members can use text and voice prompts to command and collaborate with their robotic teammates. We invested in Scout AI’s seed round because we believe physical AI is a force multiplier for the DOD and is harkening the future of human-machine teaming.”
Other seed round participants included Draper Associates, Decisive Point Ventures, Perot Jain, Sigmas Group, Evolution VC, BVVC, Habitat Partners, Piedmont Capital Investments, FJ Labs, Revelry Venture Partners, Monte Carlo Capital, Expansion VC and Gaingels.
Scout AI’s G01 unmanned ground vehicle and A01 unmanned aerial vehicle prototypes are operating autonomously at the company’s proving grounds in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, with both being powered by Fury.
“Physical AI is the most decisive military advantage of the century,” said Adcock. “Our vision is one warfighter commanding many robots — seamlessly integrated into a unified team,” Adcock said. That level of human-machine integration requires an AI brain like Fury that understands commander intent and can think, move, and collaborate like seasoned operators. That’s how we achieve true force multiplication.”
Sunnyville, California-headquartered Scout AI will use the newfound investment to further develop Fury and its vehicles, as well as expand its manufacturing capacity and workforce.
