Inside Gather AI’s $40M bet on ‘physical AI’ for warehouses and global logistics

9 March 2026

^{Gather AI’s MHE Vision Solution in Action at Barrett Distribution Centers.}

On February 9th, 2026, Gather AI, a US technology company developing artificial intelligence systems for warehouse operations, announced it has raised $40 million in Series B funding to expand its platform for logistics and manufacturing companies. The investment round was led by Smith Point Capital Management, the venture capital firm founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Tribeca Venture Partners, Bling Capital, Dundee Venture Capital, XRC Ventures and The Hillman Company. The new funding brings Gather AI’s total capital raised to $74 million.

The company says the investment will support the global expansion of its Physical Intelligence Platform, a system designed to give logistics operators continuous insight into what is physically happening inside warehouses. By combining artificial intelligence, drones and camera-equipped warehouse equipment, Gather AI aims to close what it describes as the “physical-digital divide” between digital inventory systems and real-world warehouse activity.

For companies managing increasingly complex supply chains, that gap has become a significant operational challenge.

The persistent problem of warehouse visibility

Modern supply chains rely heavily on digital systems that track inventory, shipments and workflows. However, those systems often depend on manual scans and transactional updates that only capture part of what happens inside a facility.

When goods are moved without being scanned, placed in the wrong location or counted incorrectly, the digital record can quickly diverge from the physical reality.

According to Gather AI, these discrepancies create operational blind spots that contribute to billions of dollars in inefficiencies across global logistics networks each year.

Rob Rozicki, Head of Marketing at Gather AI, told us the company’s technology was developed to address this problem directly.

“Global supply chains still rely on incomplete or outdated inventory data, and Gather AI solves that by providing continuous, automated visibility into what is actually happening inside warehouses,” he said.

Traditional warehouse management systems record inventory movements when barcodes are scanned or transactions are entered into software. But they rarely provide continuous monitoring of activity across the entire facility. Gather AI’s approach instead focuses on observing the environment itself.

Turning physical activity into structured data

Gather AI describes its technology as a Physical Intelligence Platform. In practical terms, this means collecting data directly from the physical environment and converting it into structured digital information that warehouse systems can use.

“Traditional tools analyze transactional data, while Gather AI turns real-world environments into structured, usable data by combining sensors, robotics, and AI to understand what’s physically happening in warehouses,” Rozicki explained.

The system uses cameras installed on material handling equipment (MHE) such as forklifts, along with drones that scan warehouse aisles and storage locations. The captured images are analysed using computer vision models that identify pallets, barcodes and inventory levels before synchronising the information with warehouse management systems.

According to recent reporting by TechCrunch, the system is capable of identifying additional operational details including lot numbers, expiry dates, product damage and storage occupancy. This broader dataset allows logistics teams to detect potential problems earlier than traditional scanning methods would allow.

The result is what the company describes as “ground truth” data — an accurate representation of what is physically happening in a facility at any given time.

From robotics research to logistics technology

The origins of Gather AI reflect the founders’ academic background in robotics.

The company was founded in 2017 by three PhD students from Carnegie Mellon University, one of the world’s leading robotics research institutions. According to TechCrunch, the founders previously worked on autonomous helicopter systems capable of flying and landing safely during their doctoral research.

That research shaped the way they approached warehouse automation.

“My PhD work focused on how to make different kinds of flying robots curious,” co-founder and CEO Sankalp Arora told TechCrunch. “So they’re curious about boxes and bar codes and workflows.”

Instead of scanning inventory randomly, the system analyses its environment and decides where to focus attention. This allows the technology to prioritise areas where errors or inefficiencies are most likely to occur.

The underlying algorithms combine neural networks with Bayesian statistical techniques, a probability-based approach used to interpret visual data. Arora told TechCrunch that this architecture allows the system to analyse environments reliably without relying on the type of large language models commonly used in generative AI.

Measuring operational impact

Gather AI reports that customers using its platform achieve 99.9 per cent inventory accuracy, reduce manual counting by up to 80 per cent, and improve productivity by as much as five times. The company says many deployments deliver a return on investment within six months.

While these figures come from the company itself, they highlight the operational pressures facing modern logistics networks. Warehouses now handle higher volumes of goods with tighter delivery expectations, leaving less room for inventory errors.

Even small discrepancies between physical inventory and digital records can cause delays, excess stock or inefficient labour allocation.

Gather AI says its technology is already deployed by organisations including GEODIS, NFI Industries, Kwik Trip, Axon, dnata, Barrett Distribution and Langham Logistics.

The company also reports that bookings increased 250 per cent over the past year while its operational footprint doubled during the same period.

“Customers began expanding from single-site pilots to multi-facility deployments after seeing measurable improvements in inventory accuracy, labor efficiency, and operational decision-making,” Rozicki said.

Investor interest in “physical AI”

Gather AI’s technology falls within a growing category often referred to as physical AI — systems designed to analyse and respond to real-world environments.

Keith Block, founder and CEO of Smith Point Capital Management, believes this approach could become a new layer of infrastructure for supply chains.

“Gather AI is redefining how the physical world gets measured, understood, and operated,” Block said in the company’s funding announcement.

“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.”

Investors appear to share that perspective. The company’s Series B round includes venture capital firms specialising in logistics, enterprise software and retail technology.

According to Rozicki, these investors bring more than financial backing.

“They also bring deep operational expertise and networks that help us scale enterprise partnerships and navigate the next phase of growth.”

Moving from visibility to prevention

For Gather AI’s leadership team, the longer-term objective is not simply monitoring warehouse activity but enabling more proactive supply chain operations.

CEO Sankalp Arora argues that real-time visibility can help logistics teams detect and prevent operational disruptions before they escalate.

“For too long, supply chains have operated with a fundamental blind spot: they couldn't see what was actually happening on the floor,” Arora said.

“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.”

The company plans to use the new funding to expand into additional facilities globally while developing predictive capabilities for inventory and workflow management.

Warehouses as intelligent infrastructure

The broader trend reflected in Gather AI’s growth is the transformation of warehouses into data-driven operational hubs.

Historically, warehouses functioned primarily as storage facilities. Increasingly, however, they are becoming critical decision-making centres within global supply chains.

Rozicki believes physical AI will reshape how these environments operate.

“Physical AI will transform warehouses from reactive storage environments into intelligent, data-driven systems that continuously sense, analyze, and optimize operations in real time,” he said.

Whether that vision becomes widespread will depend on how quickly logistics companies adopt new technologies and integrate them into existing infrastructure.

What is clear is that demand for accurate, real-time operational data is increasing across global supply chains. For Gather AI, the latest funding round suggests investors believe that closing the gap between physical activity and digital systems could become an essential capability for the logistics industry.