Gatik AI raised $200 million in a funding round led by Qatar Investment Authority and Koch Disruptive Technologies, its largest investment round to date.
The round brought Gatik’s total funding to about $500 million as the company expands autonomous freight operations with customers including Walmart, Kroger and Tyson Foods.
CEO Gautam Narang said the investment reflects growing confidence in commercially viable autonomous trucking and will help scale routes and customer adoption.
Funding and investor profile
Autonomous trucking startup Gatik AI Inc. has raised $200 million in a round led by deep-pocketed investors, including Qatar Investment Authority and Koch Disruptive Technologies, its largest funding series to date.
Gatik will use the cash infusion to grow in regions where the self-driving trucking company runs freight trucks, expanding routes and courting new business, CEO and co-founder Gautam Narang said in an interview.
The latest round, which included Millennium Management, ARK Invest, Intact Private Capital and others, brings the total capital raised by the company to about $500 million.
Commercial deployment milestones
For Gatik, the investment is a clear sign that the autonomous trucking industry is moving past the trial-and-error stage and into an era of highway deployment with major shippers in the US and Canada.
The startup is transporting freight in dozens of trucks for multiple customers, including PepsiCo Inc., Walmart Inc., Kroger Co. and Tyson Foods Inc., with driverless trucks running in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, Phoenix and Northwest Arkansas.
Gatik is also moving goods for Loblaw Cos. with a safety driver in Ontario. Its trucks run nearly 24 hours a day, moving ambient, refrigerated and frozen goods between distribution centers and stores.
Revenue commitments and market validation
In January, Gautam Narang said the company had signed deals for $600 million in revenue over five years. He said Gatik’s backlog has grown, but would not say by how much or if the company is profitable.
“These are very sophisticated long-term financial investors that usually get involved when the business is proven out and the economics are proven out,” Narang said. “It’s less about building a business. It’s more about scaling the business that we have today.”
“Autonomous freight is reaching an inflection point as AI and robotics converge to transform the transportation ecosystem,” said Cathie Wood, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest. “Gatik has demonstrated that autonomous trucking is moving beyond experimentation into commercially viable operations with growing customer adoption.”
Source: Transport Topics
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
