TechCrunch Startup News Gather AI, maker of ‘curious’ warehouse drones, lands $40M led by Keith Block’s firm
Feb 9, 2026
A startup raised $40M to scale warehouse robotics and inventory vision. Founders from Carnegie Mellon built autonomous helicopters turned forklifts and drones. Cameras and flying robots log operations into warehouse systems. A curiosity-driven AI actively seeks barcodes, dates and damage. The team favors Bayesian methods and neural nets over large language models.
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Fast Rapport With Lead Investor
- Gather AI raised a $40 million Series B led by Smith Point Capital, founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block.
- The founders met Smith Point at a logistics conference and said the firm understood their work within minutes.
Founders' Autonomous Helicopter Origin
- The founders met as PhD students at Carnegie Mellon and built one of the first autonomous helicopters tested at Quantico.
- They leveraged that research to found Gather AI in 2017 and apply flying-robot curiosity to warehouses.
Curiosity-Driven Warehouse Vision
- Gather AI uses cameras on forklifts and drones to observe operations and log findings into warehouse management systems.
- Their system focuses on targeted data like barcodes, lot codes, expirations, damages, and occupancy to predict issues.