Overland AI is a Seattle-based defense technology startup building autonomy software and vehicles for off-road military ground operations, led by University of Washington professor Byron Boots. On June 29, 2026, the company announced a $19.7 million US Marine Corps contract — awarded through the Pentagon's APFIT rapid-fielding program — to deliver more than a dozen autonomous ground vehicles plus software starting in early 2027, initially handling resupply for counter-drone crews (Source: geekwire.com).
Snapshot
Funding
| Date | Round | Lead / investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-02-03 | $100M | Led by 8VC; also Point72 Ventures, Ascend, Shasta Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, and new investors Valor Equity Partners, StepStone Group and TriplePoint Capital; total raised more than $140M | (Source: geekwire.com) |
| 2025-01-13 | $32M Series A | Led by 8VC | (Source: overland.ai) |
| 2024-05-20 | $10M seed | Led by Point72 Ventures | (Source: overland.ai) |
GeekWire described the round a year before the February 2026 raise as $42 million, against the company's own $32 million Series A figure (Source: geekwire.com).
Headcount
| Date | Employees | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-02 | More than 100 | (Source: geekwire.com) |
| 2025-01 | 50 | (Source: overland.ai) |
History and leadership
The company was founded in 2022 and spun out of the University of Washington (Source: overland.ai; Source: geekwire.com). It is led by CEO Byron Boots, who heads UW's Robot Learning Laboratory and is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, and co-founder and president Stephanie Bonk (Source: geekwire.com). Overland was a performer in DARPA's Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program, which it completed in November 2025 after three years of testing (Source: geekwire.com). It opened a 22,000-square-foot production facility in Seattle in 2025 (Source: geekwire.com).
Products
Overland's software comprises the OverDrive autonomy stack and the OverWatch command-and-control interface (Source: overland.ai). GeekWire reports that the technology lets one human operator control multiple robotic vehicles in off-road terrain, including without GPS, and can be installed on other vehicles; the company emphasises breaching missions, in which autonomy would remove combat engineers from minefields, wire and barriers (Source: geekwire.com). Its own vehicle, ULTRA, unveiled in April 2025, is described by the company as carrying a 1,000-pound payload with a 100-mile range at up to 35 miles per hour, for reconnaissance, counter-UAS protection, resupply and contested logistics (Source: overland.ai). Overland also partnered with CAL FIRE, which tested its self-driving four-wheelers for wildfire resupply at Camp Pendleton (Source: geekwire.com).
Military contracting
The company says it is the first ground-autonomy company to prime a military production contract, a status coverage distinguished from rival Forterra's larger $92 million June 2026 award as a supplier under Oshkosh Defense (Source: geekwire.com). Overland's own announcement describes the award as a $20 million production Other Transaction Authority agreement through the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering's Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program, with the Marine Corps' Program Manager Ground Based Air Defense, for vehicles supporting the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) (Source: overland.ai).
Earlier and later awards include a $2 million US Army contract that GeekWire described as recent in February 2026 (Source: geekwire.com) and a $20 million award, announced September 8, 2026, from the Army's Capability Program Executive Mission Autonomy for the Engineer Autonomous Breaching Capability initiative (Source: overland.ai). The company works with the Army, Marine Corps and SOCOM, including the 82nd Airborne Division and the 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Source: geekwire.com). See Government AI Procurement.
Contract values and performance claims above are company-announced or drawn from trade coverage of company announcements; the company's financials are not disclosed.
Relationships
- deploys-in: Defense / Military — AI Deployment — ground-autonomy vendor to the US Marine Corps
- related: DOD — Department of Defense (AI Deployer) — APFIT rapid-fielding program customer
- related: U.S. Army (AI Deployer) — breaching and other Army contracts
- related: DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) — RACER program performer
- related: Autonomous Weapons — adjacent policy debate (the announced vehicles handle resupply, not weapons)
- related: Government AI Procurement