Gather AI lands $40M to bring Physical AI and 'curious' drones to warehouse operations worldwide

Gather AI Secures $40 Million Series B Funding Led by Smith Point Capital

Gather AI has closed a $40 million Series B funding round led by Smith Point Capital, the venture capital firm founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block. The investment includes participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Tribeca Venture Partners, Bling Capital, Dundee Venture Capital, XRC Ventures, and new investor The Hillman Company, bringing the Pittsburgh-based startup's total funding to $74 million1

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. The Gather AI team first connected with Smith Point Capital a year ago at a logistics conference, where "it took Keith and his team five minutes to get what we're doing," co-founder and CEO Sankalp Arora told TechCrunch1

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Physical AI Addresses the Warehouse Intelligence Gap

What sets Gather AI apart is its approach to Physical AI, artificial intelligence that learns from real physical environments rather than text or internet data. The platform uses AI-powered vision systems mounted on off-the-shelf drones and strategic moving equipment like forklifts to monitor warehouse operations continuously1

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. Global logistics and manufacturing companies lose billions annually because warehouse activity rarely matches digital system records, creating what the industry calls the "physical-digital divide"2

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. Gather AI's models are trained on millions of proprietary warehouse images, allowing robots to see, count, and verify static and moving inventory in complex environments where standard sensors fail2

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Carnegie Mellon University Roots and 'Curious' Technology

The four founders met as PhD students at Carnegie Mellon University, where they built one of the first autonomous helicopters and tested it on FBI training grounds in Quantico1

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. In 2017, they launched Gather AI by applying what they learned about teaching helicopters to fly and land safely. Arora's PhD work focused on making flying robots "curious," and this concept drives the platform's approach to warehouse inventory management. The drones and cameras aren't random in what they scan—they're curious about boxes, barcodes, workflows, lot codes, text, expiration dates, case counts, damages, and occupancy1

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. They work in environments unfriendly to people, including freezers and cold storage facilities.

Bayesian Techniques Power Autonomous Data Capture Without Hallucinations

Because Gather AI's underlying technology was built years before large language models emerged, it uses a different AI approach. "They're not end-to-end neural networks," Arora explains. "They are classical Bayesian techniques, combined with neural networks"1

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. AI vision Bayesian techniques use probability-based methods to teach computer vision systems how to interpret visual data. These systems allow the technology to learn by using data and prior knowledge to make decisions, meaning they don't suffer the hallucination problems that plague LLMs1

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. Instead, they "get curious" to gather information through autonomous data capture and make decisions on the next action based on what they've learned.

Real-Time Inventory Data Delivers ROI in Under Six Months

Gather AI positions itself at the edge of embodied AI—robots that interact with the real world rather than through computer chat or web apps. The platform delivers dock-to-dock visibility that extends beyond isolated checkpoints, tracking how goods move throughout entire facilities to identify inefficiencies and detect bottlenecks3

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. Customers achieve 99.9% inventory accuracy, reduce manual counting effort by up to 80%, and improve productivity by 5x, with most realizing ROI in under six months2

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. The systems scan warehouse aisles, read labels and barcodes, and automatically feed real-time inventory data into WMS and ERP systems without requiring fixed infrastructure changes or manual scanning2

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Explosive Growth Positions Gather AI as Supply Chain Reliability Leader

The investment follows significant momentum, with Gather AI doubling its operational footprint and growing bookings 250% over the past year2

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. The platform has become the operational standard for major logistics and manufacturing companies including GEODIS, NFI Industries, Kwik Trip, Axon, dnata, Barrett Distribution, and Langham Logistics1

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. Keith Block stated, "What Sankalp and his team have built isn't just a better way to count inventory; it's a foundational intelligence layer for the modern supply chain. We believe Gather AI will become the system of record for every warehouse, factory, and yard"2

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. The company currently employs about 60 people and won the 2025 Nebius Robotics award for Vision AI and Streaming Video Analytics in December1

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Expansion Plans Target Predictive Capabilities and Global Deployment

The $40 million Series B funding will accelerate expansion to hundreds of additional facilities globally across North America, Europe, and Asia, with every warehouse becoming part of an intelligent network2

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. The investment will support development of predictive capabilities for proactive inventory management and workflow intelligence that delivers complete dock-to-dock visibility3

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. Arora explained the shift in approach: "This funding allows us to expand from real-time visibility to full autonomous orchestration. Our customers aren't just finding problems faster. They're preventing them entirely. That shift from reactive to proactive is what transforms Physical AI from a nice-to-have into the operating system for modern logistics"2

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. Gather AI is also scaling its engineering and customer success teams to support enterprise-wide deployments and will showcase its platform at Manifest and MODEX throughout 20262

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