Self-driving truck startup Gatik raises $200M following PepsiCo deal

Gatik , the autonomous vehicle startup known for its self-driving box trucks, has raised $200 million just two months after striking a multi-year commercial agreement with PepsiCo.

The round was led by Qatar Investment Authority and Koch Disruptive Technologies, with participation from Millennium Management, ARK Invest, and Intact Private Capital. The Santa Clara, California-based company has raised about $500 million since it came out of stealth in 2019. The company didn’t disclose its valuation.

The funding, the company’s largest to date, marks a new phase for Gatik as it evolves from a startup with a few pilot programs into a company that runs commercial driverless operations with multiple commercial customers across several cities.

“These are all long-term investors,” Gatik co-founder and CEO Gautam Narang said in a recent interview. “All the scale-up plans that we have and the growth that we have in mind for the next few years — these are the kind of financial partners that can help us.”

Gatik has carved out a niche for itself in the competitive and burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry. While dozens of startups and well-funded tech companies worked on developing sidewalk delivery robots, robotaxis, self-driving big rigs for long hauls, or driverless vehicles designed for construction and mining, Gatik focused on short-haul delivery.

The startup built a fleet of driverless box trucks that could be used to deliver food and beverages for suppliers — starting with fixed-route trips that were less than 10 miles, and growing to dynamic routes with dozens of pick-up and drop-off locations that cover up to 400 miles.

Gatik largely sits alone in this slice of the market, where it has become a dominant player in so-called “middle-mile” delivery. The company has several high-profile customers, including Canada’s Loblaw, Walmart and PepsiCo.

Last year, the company reached a critical technical and operational milestone that allowed it to pull the safety driver from behind the wheel on its commercial routes. Gatik now has dozens of self-driving trucks that are fully driverless and operate commercially across several markets. Importantly, they can operate in a variety of conditions and environments.

“The technology has evolved and matured a lot over the last few years, especially with the latest generation of our tech,” Narang said, noting that the company’s third-generation self-driving trucks operate around the clock on surface streets and highways, and can handle light rain and snow.

Gatik wouldn’t share precise fleet numbers or confirm the names of all of its current customers (it has completed deliveries for Kroger and Tyson Foods as well). But its largest public partnership is with PepsiCo, in which 41 driverless box trucks shuttle Cheetos, Doritos, and other Frito-Lay products from distribution centers to stores in Dallas, Phoenix and Northwest Arkansas.

That middle-mile niche has paid off for the Santa Clara, California-based startup.