Ask Sage Raises $17M to Advance Delivery of GenAI Tools to Government Agencies

Nicolas Chaillan

Arlington, Va.-based Ask Sage, which helps defense and other government agencies access generative artificial intelligence technology, has raised $17 million in a Series A funding round led by California’s Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Mucker Capital.

The startup’s founder and CEO, Nicolas Chaillan, is a defense industry veteran, who has served the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. He has also been a serial entrepreneur, with Ask Sage his latest venture founded in 2023.

Core Users in DoD

Ask Sage offers both commercial and open-source large language models (LLMs) to develop AI tools. Its platform is used by more than 30,000 DoD service members and 14,000 government teams.

“Support and enthusiasm from Sapphire Ventures and Mucker Capital through the Series A enables us to further extend Ask Sage’s transformative Generative AI capabilities to current and emerging public sector and commercial applications,” said Chaillan, who was the chief software officer for the U.S. Air Force. “With this investment, Ask Sage is poised to scale and enhance its platform and technology to meet customers’ security and operational needs.”

Ask Sage says its GenAI platform is the first of its kind to receive a DoD Impact Level 5 and so-called FedRAMP High Authority to operate, a feat it achieved earlier this year. The platform, which leverages Microsoft’s Azure AI, was to be implemented onto the U.S. Army’s cloud environment known as cArmy.

Help for Startups
The new investment, Ask Sage said, would help expand its GenAI offerings, accelerate growth and strategically expand its workforce. It is also focusing on ways to reduce the time it takes to start working with the government from years to weeks. The company plans to launch a new product in early January that will help startups and other companies meet certain standards and do business with the U.S. government, the DoD and the Defense Industrial Base.

“The defense industry is experiencing a moment of transformation as it adopts new and innovative technologies to be a leader in national security. Ask Sage is one of those breakthrough solutions, enabling the Department of Defense to fully leverage the powerful capabilities of Gen AI,” said Jai Das, a Sapphire Ventures partner who will join the Ask Sage board.