Our Story
Fort Knox AI was founded by veterans, engineers, and scientists who witnessed firsthand the gap between the technology available to commercial industry and what was being fielded to the warfighter. We exist to close that gap — permanently.
Mission
Our mission is to protect allied forces and secure global stability by building the world's most resilient and intelligent autonomous systems. We believe that the nations and organizations that master autonomous AI will define the security landscape of the 21st century — and we are committed to ensuring that advantage belongs to democracies.
Every decision we make is filtered through a single question: does this make our warfighters more effective and safer? Technology is the means, not the end.
We believe autonomous systems must be built with human oversight, ethical constraints, and accountability at their core. Speed of innovation never justifies cutting corners on safety.
The battlefield evolves faster than any procurement cycle. We operate on software timelines, shipping capability updates in weeks, not years.
We tell our customers and partners exactly what our systems can and cannot do. Trust is the foundation of every mission-critical relationship.
History
Fort Knox AI founded in San Diego, CA. Seed round of $45M.
Aegis OS v1.0 achieves first fully autonomous flight in GPS-denied environment.
Series A: $150M led by Andreessen Horowitz and In-Q-Tel.
V-Strike achieves IOC with U.S. Special Operations Command.
Series B: $350M. Valuation reaches $1.2B.
Phantom Wing completes first autonomous air combat exercise against manned aircraft.
Aegis OS integrated into 40+ third-party platforms across 8 allied nations.
Series C: $650M. Fort Knox AI reaches $3.5B valuation.
Sentinel Node enters operational testing with U.S. Army.
Leadership
Former DARPA program manager who led the ACE autonomous air combat program. PhD in Robotics from MIT. 15 years in defense AI research.
Ex-Google Brain researcher specializing in reinforcement learning for real-world robotics. Led development of Aegis OS from concept to deployment.
Retired USAF Colonel with 24 years of operational experience. Former commander of the 432nd Wing, the Air Force's premier RPA wing.
Previously at Anduril and Northrop Grumman. Expert in embedded systems and real-time operating systems for autonomous platforms.
Former Pentagon acquisition officer with deep relationships across DoD, Five Eyes partners, and allied defense ministries.
Pioneer in responsible AI for defense applications. Leads Fort Knox's ethical AI framework and human-machine teaming protocols.