Gecko Robotics raises $125 million in deal valuing critical infrastructure startup over $1 billion
The new round of funding means the Pittsburgh-based company has reached unicorn status, roughly twelve years after it was founded by Jake Loosararian. The company's previous round of funding, a $173 million Series C in December 2023, valued it at $633 million.
To date, the company has raised $347 million from investors including USIT, XN, Founders Fund and Y Combinator. Its latest round was led by new investor Cox Enterprises.
Gecko Robotics, the two-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company, ranked No. 30 on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list. It uses a variety of robots that can climb, fly and swim around critical infrastructure, gaining valuable insights and data on the structures that is then parsed via Gecko's AI-powered operating platform, Cantilever. That information is then used by organizations to optimize, maintain and monitor the infrastructure.
The company works across a variety of physical assets and industries, ranging from L3Harris Technologies and the U.S. Navy for critical military aircraft and ships; energy companies like NAES, the U.S.'s largest independent power operator, to modernize and optimize power plants, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, where Gecko's robots inspect gas facilities, tanks and other infrastructure.
"Gecko was built out of my college dorm room, to what it is today — the company ensuring the safety of public infrastructure, the optimization of energy and manufacturing facilities, and the modernization of militaries to deter global conflict," Loosararian said in a statement announcing the latest round.
The company said it will use the additional funding to accelerate its growth, and its continued push into sectors like defense, energy and manufacturing. Gecko said that its Cantilever operating platform provides insights that can do everything from modernizing C-130 aircraft to recommending how a power plant can operate at up to 5% greater efficiency.
"While much of the tech industry is focused on consumer AI applications, Gecko Robotics is using AI to address an important, underappreciated challenge – the building and maintenance of critical infrastructure," stated Trae Stephens, partner at Founders Fund, and also co-founder and executive chairman of defense tech company Anduril, the 2025 No. 1 Disruptor, in the deal statement. "Gecko's business continues to grow as organizations across a wide variety of sectors realize this work is more safely and thoroughly performed by sensors and robots than humans," he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Wire
28 minutes ago
- Business Wire
Oxmiq Labs Inc.™: Re-Architecting the GPU Stack: From Atoms to Agents™
CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oxmiq Labs Inc., the all-new GPU software and IP startup founded by one of the world's top GPU architects and visionaries, Raja Koduri, emerges from stealth after two years of intensive IP development. Raja has assembled a world-class team of GPU and AI architects with over 500 years of combined experience, hundreds of patents, and a collective track record of generating more than $100B in revenue at prior companies. The Opportunity: Modern computing has fundamentally shifted toward multimodal experiences where text, audio, video, images, and 3D environments seamlessly interact, establishing GPU architecture as the cornerstone of this transformation. Unlike fixed-function AI accelerators that handle specific tasks, GPUs provide the general-purpose computational flexibility required for these diverse modalities while maintaining deep integration with mainstream operating systems through standardized APIs and unified memory models. This architectural advantage positions GPUs as the essential compute engine for both current applications and the emerging landscape of multimodal AI, where heterogeneous workloads must be processed in harmony. OXMIQ™'s licensable GPU IP rearchitects the GPU from first principles incorporating breakthrough technologies including nano agents in silicon leveraging RISC-V cores, near-memory and in-memory computing, and light transport. OXMIQ delivers solutions that balance multimodal computing flexibility with the radical performance improvements required for next-generation graphics and AI workloads for its customers. Software First: Learning from decades of industry evolution, OXMIQ embraces a Software First strategy that prioritizes developer experience through a comprehensive software stack compatible with bothOXMIQ IP-based silicon and third-party GPU and AI accelerator platforms. OXCapsule™, OXMIQ's unified software ecosystem, abstracts away hardware complexity to provide frictionless deployment across diverse computing platforms, eliminating the configuration challenges that traditionally plague heterogeneous environments. A flagship component, OXPython™, enables Python-based NVIDIA® CUDA™ AI applications to execute seamlessly on non-NVIDIA hardware without code modification or recompilation. Launching initially on Tenstorrent's AI platform later this year with multiple vendor integrations in progress, OXPython demonstrates OXMIQ's commitment to breaking down hardware silos and accelerating the democratization of high-performance computing across the industry. 'We're excited to partner with OXMIQ on their OXPython software stack,' said Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent™. 'OXPython's ability to bring Python® workloads for CUDA to AI platforms like Wormhole™ and Blackhole™ is great for developer portability and ecosystem expansion. It aligns with our goal of letting developers open and own their entire AI stack.' The OXMIQ Breakthrough: Beyond software, OXMIQ delivers a complete GPU hardware IP stack that powers silicon solutions scaling from Physical AI in edge devices and autonomous robots to enterprise edge infrastructure and zettascale data centers. Their scalable GPU core, OXCORE™, integrates scalar, vector, and tensor compute engines in a modular architecture customizable for specific workloads, enabling nano-agents, native Python acceleration, and compatibility with SIMD/CUDA paradigms. OXCORE scales seamlessly from single core for compact Physical AI applications to thousands of cores for data centers via the OXQUILT™ chip-let architecture. Through OXQUILT, customers can configure optimal ratios of compute, memory and interconnect for their needs and achieve significant reduction in time to market, R&D and production costs v/s current industry standard methodologies. Capital Efficiency & Market Traction: OXMIQ has raised $20 million in seed funding from prominent technology investors, including strategic players in mobile and AI silicon such as MediaTek®, and has recorded its first round of software revenue. With its licensing-first model, OXMIQ avoids the heavy capital requirements of chip startups that depend on expensive EDA tools and physical tape-outs — delivering outstanding capital efficiency. 'OXMIQ has an impressive bold vision and world-class team,' said Lawrence Loh, SVP of MediaTek 'The company's GPU IP and software innovations will drive a new era of compute flexibility across devices – from mobile to automotive to AI on the edge.' Mihira™: After co-founding Mihira two years ago with Shobu Yarlagadda and SS Rajamouli, Raja Koduri has transitioned out of day-to-day operations at Mihira to focus full-time on running OXMIQ. Raja now acts as a strategic advisor to Mihira Visual Labs™, which is led by CEO Shobu Yarlagadda. OXMIQ holds a minority stake in Mihira and will continue to support its growth through foundational agentic and GPU IP technologies that power Mihira's cinematic AI platform. 'Raja's early contributions to Mihira helped shape our foundational vision of cinematic AI. Now, with OXMIQ, he and his team are building the deep-tech infrastructure that powers our next chapter,' said Shobu Yarlagadda, Co-Founder and CEO of Mihira Visual Labs™, and acclaimed producer of the Baahubali film series. 'As we scale Mihira into a global creative platform, we're thrilled to continue our close collaboration with OXMIQ and integrate their agentic GPU innovations into our storytelling stack.' To learn more about licensing, investment, or career opportunities visit us on the web at NVIDIA and CUDA are trademarks or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Python is a registered trademark of the Python Software Foundation. Tenstorrent, Wormhole, and Blackhole are trademarks of Tenstorrent Inc. MediaTek is a registered trademark of MediaTek Inc. All other product names, trademarks, and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners and are used for identification purposes only.
CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
Mario Lemieux's bid to buy back the Penguins is not close to estimated team value, report says
Mario Lemieux's bid to buy back the Pittsburgh Penguins does not come close what the team's estimated value is likely worth, according to a new report. Earlier this summer, it was reported that Lemieux, along with Ron Burkle and David Morehouse, were interested in buying the team back from the Fenway Sports Group, who purchased the team in 2021. Lemieux and Burkle sold the Penguins to FSG for just shy of $1 billion and last month, it was reported that the Lemieux group was considering its financial options that could lead to taking control of the Penguins again at some point. A new report from Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman suggests that the Lemieux group's bid for the team isn't close to FSG's apparent asking price. The only thing I've heard about that so far is that they're just well below what Fenway would want to be the number," Friedman said on his 32 Thoughts podcast. DK Pittsburgh Sports reported last month that the Lemieux group was prepared to buy somewhere in the range of $1 billion for the team. The Penguins were valued at $1.75 billion in the latest Forbes rankings in the fall of 2024, which came in the midst of franchise values skyrocketing across the National Hockey League. Friedman also referenced the recent $1.8 billion sale of the Tampa Bay Lightning, suggesting that price point could be "where the Penguins would want to be."
Business Insider
3 hours ago
- Business Insider
Lyft is getting into the robotaxi game with a big Chinese company
Baidu and Lyft are joining forces to deploy Apollo Go robotaxis in European cities. Lyft is planning for thousands of robotaxis in Europe, starting in the UK and Germany by 2026. This comes as the robotaxi race is heating up globally. Lyft is teaming up with Chinese tech giant Baidu to bring its robotaxis to European streets. The San Francisco-based ride-hailing company will deploy Baidu's sixth-generation Apollo Go self-driving robotaxis in Europe starting next year, it said in a Monday press release. According to the release, Lyft will bring thousands of vehicles from Baidu across Europe in the following years. It said it would start with the United Kingdom and Germany in 2026, following regulatory approvals. "By integrating Baidu's cutting-edge autonomous driving technology with Lyft's platform reach and operational expertise, we're excited to deliver safer, greener, and more efficient mobility solutions to more users," Robin Li, Baidu's CEO and cofounder, said in the release. Lyft CEO David Risher added in the release that the partnership will bring the benefits of autonomous vehicles, such as safety, reliability, and privacy, to "millions of Europeans." Baidu, a Chinese internet search engine giant, launched its Apollo Go electric autonomous vehicles in 2020. According to its website, Apollo Go provides autonomous ride-hailing services in 11 Chinese cities. And earlier this year, Apollo Go announced it would expand its robotaxis to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 2026. According to a July 2024 report by the Chinese state-affiliated news outlet Global Times, a 10-kilometre Apollo Go ride in Wuhan city costs between 4 and 16 Chinese yuan, or $0.60 to $2.20. On July 31, Lyft announced its acquisition of Freenow, a ride-hailing service operating in nine European countries, in a move to expand into the European market. robotaxi dominance. On July 31, Musk wrote on X that riders could hail a Tesla in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin. However, a July report from HSBC analysts found that it could take years for driverless taxis to become profitable, and the market was "widely overestimated."
