companies

Ask Sage

Model-agnostic generative AI gateway built for classified and CUI environments, giving defense and federal teams one secure API.

Ask Sage was founded in 2023 by Nicolas Chaillan, the former Chief Software Officer of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, and is based in Bentonville, Virginia. The platform gives government and defense users a single, security-hardened interface to reach many commercial and open-source language models rather than standing up separate approvals for each vendor, and it became the first generative AI platform to receive both a DoD Impact Level 5 authorization and FedRAMP High status. The company grew quickly inside the Pentagon: the U.S. Army built its Army Enterprise LLM Workspace on Ask Sage under a multi-year, $49 million contract, and the DoD's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office separately committed roughly $10 million in its first year of partnership. Ask Sage raised a $17 million Series A led by Sapphire Ventures with Mucker Capital, and in November 2025 agreed to be acquired by BigBear.ai for about $250 million, with Chaillan joining BigBear.ai as Chief Technology Officer.

Founded

2023

Headquarters

Bentonville, United States

Sector

infrastructure