Autonomous middle mile delivery company, Gatik, announced today that it has raised an $85 million Series B round of funding. The round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, with participation from existing investors Innovation Endeavors, Wittington Ventures, FM Capital, Dynamo Ventures, Trucks VC among others. This brings the total amount raised by Gatik to $114.5 million
Despite its hum-drum name, the middle mile is far from middle of the road. In fact, the middle mile is perhaps one of the more exciting areas in autonomous vehicles right now. For those unfamiliar, the middle mile is the route between two business-to-business locations. Think: a retailers distribution warehouse to one of its store locations. Because the route is fixed, there are fewer variables a self-driving vehicle would encounter (same road, typically the same traffic conditions, etc.).
Because of these route limitations, it can be faster for a autonomous middle mile delivery company like Gatik to get to market. Local regulators don’t have to worry about self-driving cars learning and navigating complex situations and added safety concerns that come with delivering to a neighborhood house. Gatik now operates delivery routes in Toronto, Canada for Loblaws and for Walmart in Louisiana and Arkansas, where its middle mile route is fully driverless.
Along with today’s funding announcement, Gatik also said that it is expanding its operations into Dallas, Texas. Gautam Narang, Co-Founder and CEO of Gatik told me via video chat last week that as part of its move into Dallas, Gatik has signed undisclosed customers, which Gatik will be serving simultaneously, operating its trucks almost around the clock. “[We’ll be] moving goods for customer A during the day and customer B during the night,” Narang said.
The big funding and big move into Texas is the continuation of a big year for Gatik. So far this year the company has introduced an all-electric box truck, received $9 million (CAD) from the Canadian government to help winterize its technology, and partnered with Isuzu to develop autonomous medium-sized delivery trucks.
There isn’t a ton of competition right now in the autonomous middle mile space. Udelv unveiled its Transporter platform in April of this year. Unlike Gatik’s vehicles, which look like regular delivery trucks, Udelv’s Transporters are essentially giant pods, that don’t even have a place for a driver.
Between the investment and customers that Gatik is attracting, and the expanding willingness of local regulators to allow autonomous middle mile delivery, I suspect we’ll be seeing more players enter the space this year.
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