Gather AI, a supply chain robotics company, announced a $10 million Series A financing round led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Xplorer Capital, Dundee Venture Capital, Expa, Bling Capital, XRC Labs and 99 tartans. This latest funding accelerates Gather AI’s go-to-market strategy and continued development of their leading real-time inventory visibility platform. The platform uses off-the-shelf autonomous drones, paired with sophisticated AI-driven software, to solve the problem of misplaced inventory in warehouses – a problem that is the source of an estimated $150B annual loss that heavily impacts manufacturers, warehouse operators, and consumers.
The COVID-19 pandemic massively impacted the supply chain, fueling a 55% boom in e-commerce that also caused dramatic supply shocks. The ripple effects of a strained supply chain have driven 60% annual labor turnover that continues to plague operations worldwide. Present-day economic uncertainty further throws the supply-demand formula off balance for warehouse operators, pitting record demand and the pressure to reduce operational cost against each other. This upheaval has caused typical warehouses to misplace on roughly 10% of inventory, worth $10M on average, without the labor to find it. Lack of inventory visibility is causing supply chain facilities to lose up to $1M per month. There are more than 150,000 warehouses worldwide, a number that is only growing, and operators are desperately in need of warehouse automation, a market which is growing 23% annually.
To help minimize the financial and operational impacts of high labor turnover, human error, and the resulting revenue loss, Gather AI’s platform marries drones with powerful autonomy and machine learning software developed by pioneers in deep learning and robotics. Gather AI’s drones fly autonomously using breakthrough software that enables them to navigate the GPS-denied environment of warehouses without requiring any changes to building infrastructure or processes like lighting, wifi or labeling. The company’s machine learning engine provides rich insights, enabling the drones to detect and aggregate important data like box damage, case counting, volumetric estimation, text reading, and inventory of palletized goods. Gather AI’s drones collect data 15x faster than human cycle counters, with the proven ability to read over 95% of inventory labels and barcodes, minimizing the work for human cycle counters. Any unreadable labels are automatically brought to the operator’s attention in the web dashboard. Ultimately, Gather AI’s deep learning and interface allows human-powered labor to focus on upskilled tasks like inventory planning, management, and accurate inventory reporting.
