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Inside Overland AI’s new factory in south Seattle. (Overland Photo)
Seattle startup Overland AI is bringing manufacturing operations close to home with the opening of a 22,000 square-foot facility that will help the 3-year-old company boost production of its autonomous ground systems.
U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) attended a private ribbon-cutting event on Wednesday at the new factory, located in the Rainier Beach neighborhood south of downtown Seattle.
Founded in 2022 out of the University of Washington, Overland develops technology for the U.S. military that enables a human operator to control multiple robotic vehicles navigating off-road terrain, including in environments with no GPS.
The company announced a $32 million funding round last month.
Overland will manufacture autonomous ground vehicles from start to finish, as well as upfitting existing platforms, at the new manufacturing facility.
The company said it picked Seattle for the factory in part due to its proximity to Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), as well as to the robotics and machine learning talent at the University of Washington.
Rep. Adam Smith cuts the ribbon at Overland’s new factory in Seattle. (Patrick Bennett Photo)
Overland plans to employ 20 people at the factory by the end of the year. Overland currently has around 60 employees; its corporate headquarters is in the Northlake neighborhood.
Last year Overland won a two-year contract worth up to $18.6 million with the U.S. Army and Defense Innovation Unit to develop its OverDrive technology platform for the U.S. Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle. Other recipients included top defense tech companies Anduril and Palantir.
Overland also works with the U.S. Marine Corps and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a unit of the Department of Defense.
In November it announced a partnership with the XVIII Airborne Corps, a branch of the U.S. Army.
The company is led by CEO Byron Boots, a highly regarded robotics researcher who leads the UW’s Robot Learning Laboratory and is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering.The company is led by CEO
Overland is ranked No. 42 on the GeekWire 200, our list of top privately held startups across the Pacific Northwest.
