AAA Gatik drives to $85m series B haul

Gatik drives to $85m series B haul

US-based autonomous truck developer Gatik raised $85m in a series B round led by diversified conglomerate Koch Industries’ growth-stage investment unit Koch Disruptive Technologies on Tuesday.

FM Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Wittington Ventures, Dynamo Ventures, Intact Ventures and Truck VC also invested, along with several unnamed strategic investors. The round was oversubscribed and brings Gatik’s total funding to more than $114m.

Founded in 2017, Gatik develops autonomous light and medium-duty trucks for short-haul, middle mile logistics for retailers.

This funding will be used to scale its fleet of autonomous box trucks across North American markets, further develop its technology and grow its team and customer base.

In conjunction with the series B announcement, Gatik launched operations in Texas, with its vehicles operating 20 hours a day.

Wittington Ventures and Innovation Endeavors co-led a $25m series A round in November 2020 which also featured FM Capital, Intact Ventures, Dynamo Ventures, AngelPad, Fontinalis Partners and unnamed others.

Innovation Endeavors had led Gatik’s $4.5m seed round in June 2019 alongside commitments from Trucks VC, Dynamo Ventures, Fontinalis Partners and AngelPad.

Chase Koch, president of Koch Disruptive Technologies, said: “The logistics industry is experiencing unprecedented disruption driven by the explosive growth of e-commerce, and demand for more efficient goods movement.

“Nowhere is this more pronounced than on the middle mile. Gatik’s transformational autonomous technology and world-class team are defining the standard in business-to-business short-haul logistics by addressing the most prominent issues facing today’s supply chain.

“We believe Gatik will be the first to commercialise autonomous technology at scale for the North American medium-duty trucking market.”

By Fernando Moncada Rivera

Fernando Moncada Rivera is a reporter at Global Corporate Venturing and also host of the Global Venturing Review podcast.