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Exia Labs co-founders Serj Kazar (left) and Jonathan Pan. (Exia Labs Photo)
Jonathan Pan spent five years in the U.S. Army and then ventured into the video game industry. Now he’s combining both experiences into a new Seattle-area startup aiming to build AI software for the military.
Exia Labs announced a $2.5 million seed round that will help the Bellevue, Wash.-based startup build out its product called Blue, which it describes as a “copilot for military operations.”
The 4-person company has a unique structure. It is initially focused on a political simulation video game called “Mr. President” that will debut in July.
The idea is to generate revenue from the game to allow the company to pursue longer-lead time sales from its products for the military.
“Our intent is to bring commercial AI and games capabilities to the [Department of Defense] and we learned that generally speaking, the DoD prefers to fund R&D and/or buy software from companies with other revenue sources, in our case, games on Steam,” Pan said via email.
Exia Labs’ product Blue features various AI agents that analyze documents and automate each step of the U.S. Army’s Military Decision Making Process (MDMP). It can also simulate potential schemes to accomplish a mission.
Units from the 101st Airborne Division and the Washington Army National Guard are testing Blue in field exercises.
Pan said he first thought Exia would primarily develop video games but learned more about “wargaming,” which is used as part of military planning processes. “We found that overall area more fascinating to build AI products for, and we still get to do wargames as well,” Pan said.
As part of his research, Pan learned that the DoD was using traditional tabletop board games for both education and serious decisions.
“The future of military strategy analysis lies in simulation-based wargaming powered by artificial intelligence,” Pan wrote in a blog post.
“Mr. President” is an adaptation of a tabletop game from GMT Games.
Pan previously spent time working on gaming products at Amazon, Meta, and Walmart. He also co-founded an esports team called Ember.
Pan co-founded Exia with Serj Kazar, a former colleague at Riot Games.
a16z Speedrun, Andreessen Horowitz’s early-stage gaming-focused accelerator, led the seed round. Exia participated in the accelerator last year. Other backers include Space Capital, Anorak Ventures, Pathbreaker Ventures, and Mana Ventures.
