Outrider, a US-based developer of software that automates freight distribution yards, emerged from stealth yesterday with $53m in funding from investors including warehouse provider Prologis and chemicals producer Koch.
The company said it has closed a seed round led by New Enterprise Associates and a series A led by fellow venture capital firm 8VC. Regulatory filings indicate it raised $8.1m in seed funding in July 2018 and $40.5m yesterday, following $1.1m in December 2017.
Other investors disclosed by Outrider include Fraser McCombs Capital, Schematic Ventures, Loup Ventures and Goose Society of Texas, while Koch provided its share through its Koch Disruptive Technologies vehicle.
Outrider is developing technology intended to automate distribution yards, where trucks and semi-trailers receive goods for shipping.
The systems will be overseen by infrastructure that integrates autonomous electric vehicles with artificial intelligence and robotics systems that will automate processes such as moving, hitching and unhitching trailers.
Andrew Smith, Outrider’s founder and CEO, said: “Logistics yards offer a confined, private-property environment and a set of discrete, repetitive tasks that make the ideal use case for autonomous technology.
But today’s yards are also complex, often chaotic settings, with lots of work that is performed manually. This is why an overarching systems approach – with an autonomous truck at its centre – is key to automating every major operation in the yard.”
