Gatik has raised $4.5M in total. We talk with Gautam Narang, its CEO.
PetaCrunch: How would you describe Gatik in a single tweet?
Gautam Narang: Gatik creates autonomous solutions to tackle expensive middle-mile logistics for businesses. The Gatik solution cuts operation costs up to 50 percent for businesses while improving safety, increasing efficiency, and reducing road congestion and emissions.
PC: How did it all start and why?
GN: My co-founders and I founded Gatik in 2017 with the mission to redefine B2B short-haul logistics using safe and reliable autonomous technology. While the majority of autonomous innovation is occurring in passenger transportation, we saw a huge gap in the autonomous delivery landscape and realized our years of experience working in robotics left us in a well-equipped position to solve this untapped market need.
Today, we are rapidly developing Level 4 automated light trucks and vans at scale for B2B cargo delivery. We believe the future of delivery is autonomous, and that autonomous light commercial vehicles will play a major role in reducing the high cost of middle-mile while improving safety, increasing efficiency, reducing congestion and emissions.
PC: What have you achieved so far?
GN: Most recently we announced the deployment of our partnership with Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. Our autonomous vehicles are currently on a 2-mile fixed route and responsible for delivering customer online grocery orders from Walmart’s main warehouse in Bentonville, Arkansas to its regional Neighborhood Markets.
PC: How have you used your most recent funding round?
GN: Our most recent round of funding was raised over a year ago and has helped us further develop our technology, secure our partnership with Walmart and additional partners that we’ll be announcing later this year.
PC: What do you plan to achieve in the next 2-3 years?
GN: At Gatik, we envision a world without logistics problems. We see a world where driverless vehicles are the mainstream, and we plan to be fully automated (no safety driver) by the end of 2020. We see Gatik revolutionizing urban logistics globally in the next 2-3 years, beginning with expansion to countries with like needs and driver shortages, like Japan and Singapore. In 20 years, we see ourselves operating alongside Amazon, UPS, and FedEx.
