Applied Intuition, a US-based developer of autonomous vehicle development software that counts computing technology provider Microsoft as an investor, has secured $175m in series D funding at a valuation of $3.6bn.
The round was co-led by Addition Capital, Coatue Management and Elad Gil, with participation from fellow private investor Semil Shah, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Lux Capital. It took the company’s total funding to more than $350m.
Founded in 2017, Applied Intuition provides software to help test and develop autonomous driving systems, letting manufacturers simulate scenarios and analyse their operating systems. The capital will be used for research and development, particularly for its software tools.
In a statement, the company said: “While our products have reached enterprise-scale, our effort does not stop there. The challenges facing our domain are technically complex, and we are improving our tools to help our customers test, measure, and prove the safety of their autonomous systems for production deployment.
“We have achieved significant engineering milestones such as close-to-real-time sensor simulation, photorealism with ray tracing and performance improvements across our simulation products.”
Applied Intuition last raised money in October 2020, when it hauled in $125m in a series C round co-led by Lux Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst at a reported valuation of $1.25bn, investing alongside unnamed existing backers.
Microsoft’s corporate venturing subsidiary, M12, took part in a $40m series B round for the company in late 2019 led by General Catalyst, which invested alongside Kleiner Perkins, La Famiglia, Sozo Ventures and existing backers Lux Capital, Floodgate and Andreessen Horowitz to increase its overall funding to $51.5m.
