Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), a corporate venturing unit for chemicals producer Koch Industries, led a $65m series B round for US-based logistics automation system provider Outrider on Wednesday.
Prologis Ventures and Evolv Ventures, subsidiaries of warehouse provider Prologis and packaged food producer Kraft Heinz, helped close out the round, as did New Enterprise Associates (NEA), 8VC and Henry Crown and Company.
Founded in 2017, Outrider produces technology that converts electric yard trucks owned by logistics operators into autonomous vehicles to help move goods around their loading dock more efficiently.
The system is able to guide goods-containing trailers to specific locations in the loading area and can also hitch them to their designated lorry. Outrider will use the funding to scale up its services, and has now raised $118m to date.
The company emerged from stealth in February this year with $53m across seed and series A rounds led by NEA and 8VC respectively, with Koch Disruptive Technologies, Prologis, Fraser McCombs Capital, Schematic Ventures, Loup Ventures and Goose Society of Texas also among the participants.
Regulatory filings indicate Outrider received $40.5m at the time of its series A round following a total of $9.2m across two tranches in 2017 and 2018.
Chase Koch, president of KDT, said: “Outrider is setting the new standard for how the largest companies in the world run their supply chains.”