Gatik raises $25 million in Series A funding for its autonomous middle mile logistics

Middle mile is an important part of the logistics supply chain that enables businesses to move goods from the port to the warehouse or distribution center. Unlike the “last-mile” logistics that places products at consumer doorsteps, “middle-mile” logistics get goods from a factory or warehouse to a distribution hub. Except for big companies like Amazon, the process is fraught with inefficiency.

Enter Gatik, a San Francisco-based tech startup that solves the inefficiencies in the traditional middle mile logistics by providing autonomous vehicles for B2B short-haul logistics. Gatik helps companies to deliver goods safely and efficiently using autonomous vehicles. Its autonomous delivery fleet and technology are currently being used by multiple Fortune 500 retailers, including Walmart to deliver goods safely and efficiently from distribution centers to retail locations.

Today, Gatik announced it has raised $25 million in Series A funding to further expand its operations across North America, its team size in Silicon Valley, and its growing presence in Canada. The round was co-led by Wittington Ventures and Innovation Endeavors with participation from FM Capital and Intact Ventures. Existing investors like Dynamo Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, AngelPad, and others participated as well.

Founded in 2017 by Apeksha Kumavat, Arjun Narang, and Gautam Narang, Gatik’s team consists of veterans of the autonomous technology industry. With its fleet of light to medium-duty trucks, Gatik is leading the way in autonomous middle mile delivery. The company focuses on short-haul, business to business (B2B) logistics for the retail industry, enabling its customers to optimize their hub-and-spoke supply chain operations, enhance inventory pooling across multiple locations, reduce labor costs and meet the unprecedented demand for contactless delivery.

“We went into the year with strong momentum from early customer partnerships and validation of our technology. We’re very proud of how we’ve supported our customers throughout this unpredictable year, and strengthened their supply chains with our product. We will leverage this new funding to continue expanding our retail partnerships and fleet deployments, grow our team and enhance our technology platform to lead the market in autonomous middle mile delivery,” said Gautam Narang, CEO and Co-founder of Gatik. “Throughout the year we saw an increase of 30-35% in orders from our customer base, and we expect this trend to continue. We will continue to bring autonomous delivery into the mainstream, driving substantial efficiencies in supply chain logistics for retailers across North America and beyond.”

Since its inception in 2017, the company has raised a total of $29.5 million and is well-positioned to scale and support the rapid automation of retailers’ middle-mile operations. Gatik operates its fleet of vehicles 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, on routes up to 300 miles in multiple locations across North America. Gatik’s product delivers long-term business impact, enabling major retailers to save significantly on their middle-mile delivery costs, enhance supply chain efficiency, and meet an unprecedented expectation for contactless delivery.

Customers who previously had to wait for order fulfillment once every two days now have their orders filled once every two hours for a 24X increase in efficiency. Gatik has also worked closely with its retail customers to design the right form factor to address increasingly demanding consumer needs, and now offers 10 – 26 ft Autonomous Box Trucks capable of transporting ambient, refrigerated and frozen goods and products.

In June 2019, Walmart (NYSE: WMT) announced operations with Gatik to automate their hub and spoke network and to stay on the cutting edge of autonomous delivery. Gatik’s relationships with its customers showcase the company’s expertise in developing, operating, and servicing autonomous delivery fleets for the largest retailers in the US and Canada. To date, Gatik has completed over 30,000 revenue-generating autonomous orders for multiple Fortune 500 customers in the US and Canada.

Rapidly increasing e-commerce sales and a shortage of drivers means businesses are struggling to meet the expectations of an increasingly on-demand economy. Gatik’s product provides a safe, efficient autonomous solution that enables retailers to address increasingly demanding consumer needs, reduce operating costs, and keep delivery times short.