A startup whose robots are capable of climbing critical infrastructure components and capturing data about them has added a $100 million investment to its coffers thanks in part to financial support by a $5 billion technology fund from Pittsburgh-based billionaire Thomas Tull.
Gecko Robotics Inc., based on the North Side, said this extension to its Series C funding brings its total outside investment to over $222 million since it began taking on funding deals in 2016. The deal is likely the largest that a Pittsburgh-based firm has secured this year outside of the $820 million that Strip District-based Aurora Innovation Inc. raised in July as part of its underwritten public offering and concurrent private placement as well as the speculated $1 billion that Stack AV, another local self-driving vehicle developer, has reportedly raised.
As part of the deal terms, Gecko is offering board seats to Gaetano Crupi, the managing director of the US Innovative Technology Fund—which is led by Tull, and Trae Stephens, a partner of Founders Fund—one of the other participants in this Series C extension round. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel established the Founders Fund in 2005.
"This investment is designed to help supercharge our work ensuring the critical assets that our military relies on to protect our national security are ready,” Gecko Robotics CEO and Co-Founder Jake Loosararian said in a statement. "From our work getting ships out of maintenance cycles faster to helping build the next generation of military equipment, Gecko is proud to be increasing our partnerships with the U.S. Military - and we’re looking forward to having USIT and Founders Fund onboard helping us continue that growth."
The funding comes at a pivotal time for Gecko, which has received increased interest from the Department of Defense in recent months as the military works to better inspect and understand the state of various large-scale military assets like nuclear submarines and warships.
With the use of Gecko's robots, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and other customers have been able to survey these assets and others for possible damage at a level of fidelity Gecko said has yet to be replicated. Gecko's software offerings, which recently grew with a new artificial intelligence-powered product launch called Cantilever, allow its customers to better contextualize that captured data to further develop a plan to address any possible damage that may have occurred to these types of equipment.
"Preserving American military superiority requires that we not only maintain but also build and innovate our critical defense infrastructure," Tull, who serves as the chairman of USIT, said in a statement. "Gecko is at the forefront of pioneering a new era of military readiness with robots and AI-powered software that will improve the systems necessary to maintaining our national safety and fulfill America’s vital responsibilities around the world."
Loosararian and Chief Product Officer Troy Demmer founded Gecko in 2013. It has 240 employees in total, about 118 of whom are based in Pittsburgh.
During the announcement of its initial $73 million Series C funding round in March 2022, Gecko employed about 180 people with 100 or so workers reporting out of Pittsburgh at the time. Gecko also has offices in Boston, Houston, New York and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The backing of Gecko from USIT represents the first publicly-known Pittsburgh-based firm that Tull's fund has supported.
Last January, USIT invested $60 million into a San Francisco-based satellite manufacturer and Earth observation company called Capella Space. A Nov. 15, 2022, regulatory filing noted that USIT has so far closed on $1.347 billion as part of a $5 billion goal. Reporting in Bloomberg at the time found that Tull was raising funds for a private investment fund aimed at companies working in the defense industry and commercial sector that are producing technologies to advance the strategic advantage of the U.S. over global rivals.
