Sam:
This is a podcast brought to you by Alumni Adventures. Welcome to the Tech Optimist. This is a show where we discuss the people and innovations that are shaping our future and deciding our tomorrow.

Gautam Narang:
We have the luxury to choose routes that are maybe slightly longer but safer and easier.

Sam:
That is Gautam Narang, CEO and Co-founder of Gatik.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
I love that. And it is boldly humble, right? It is a huge opportunity. The amount of these repeat routes that have to happen and have to happen across the country is so real. The fact that you commercialized it with Walmart originally, right? They've been like a building partner for you from so many years ago.

Sam:
And that is Laura Rippy, managing partner and board member at Alumni Adventures. And it feels like magic, right? So in my head, I've always thought, how does that work? How is it possible that I could order one very specific niche thing and it's literally at my door the next day? And that's me. My name is Sam. I'm the guide editor and just Sherpa for this podcast. So sit back and let's hop in.
All right. Now before we hop into the meat of this episode, I'm going to provide a little bit more context on Gatik as a company. So, Gatik AI is an innovative autonomous trucking and delivery company that has made significant strides in the middle-mile logistics sector since its founding in 2017. So, Gatik was established in 2017 by our guest today, Gautam Narang. He's the CEO and his brother Arjun Narang, the CTO, and they also have their chief engineer Apeksha Kumavat in Mountain Valley ... sorry, in Mountain View, California. The company's offices in Arkansas, Fort Worth, Texas, and Toronto, Ontario.
What is middle-mile logistics? I'm going to get into that a little bit later. But middle-mile logistics involves the transportation of goods between warehouses, distribution centers, and retail locations. So, Gatik AI provides level-four autonomous trucks. So they developed and operates level-four autonomous trucks capable of operating without a safety driver on repeated routes. The company focuses on medium distance deliveries, addressing a crucial segment of the supply chain. And Gatik started with Ford Transit vans and has expanded to include electric versions and medium-duty trucks developed in partnership with Isuzu, which we also will get into later.
So some major milestones of partnerships for Gatik. They have a partnership with Walmart, which they started in 2019. They're the first driverless commercial service in 2021. They operate in Canada as well. And their sort of expansion of partnerships, right? They have established partnerships with major retailers and brands including Kroger, Tyson Foods, and Pitney Bowes. And as far as operations in scale as of 2024, there are over 60 trucks on the road making it the largest revenue-generating commercial fleet and autonomous trucks in North America. And the company has made over half a million deliveries for Fortune 500 companies. And as far as expansion plans and industry impact, the company aims to its increase its fleet to approximately 300 trucks by the end of 2025. They're aiming for freight only operations. So, Gatik plans to begin deploying fully driverless operations for multiple customers at scale in Dallas, Fort Worth. And Gatik is challenging traditional Class eight regional distribution networks, as evidenced by its work with Georgia-Pacific and Sam's Club stores in Dallas.
So as far as funding rounds and recognition, the company has secured multiple funding rounds, including investments from Japanese companies like Nippon Express Holdings Incorporated, Itochu, and Isuzu. Motors. Forbes has recognized Gatik on its list of America's best startup employers for three consecutive years. So Gatik AI is at the forefront of revolutionizing middleman logistics through autonomous technology, addressing critical challenges such as driver shortages and supply chain insufficiencies. Their focused approach on specific routes and partnerships with major retailers positions them as a significant player in the evolving landscape of autonomous transportation.
Now this is an awesome episode. Laura and Gautam have a really, really cool conversation here, and I am very excited to help provide that for you guys. And it's just an honor to be even guiding you through this story. So yeah, this is a top one. This is a top episode for sure. Huge fans of Gatik, huge fans of Laura, huge fans of the work that they're doing together. And yeah, we hope that you feel the same and enjoy. So please enjoy episode 73 of the Tech Optimist on our Meet the Startup episode of Gatik AI.
Before we hop into the nitty-gritty though, we're going to take a second for an ad and then we'll be right back.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Hey, everyone taking a quick break to share more about Green D Ventures. Green D Ventures is a venture capital fund built for the Dartmouth community with a portfolio of 20 to 30 investments, intentionally diversified by sector, stage, and co-invested alongside renowned Wade VC investors. We leverage our presence in the robust startup ecosystem of Dartmouth College alums to secure access to some of the most promising investment opportunities.
Green D is the first fund of Alumni Ventures, one of the most active and top-performing VC firms in the US and one of the only firms focused on making venture capital accessible to individual accredited investors like you. So if you'd like to learn more about Green D Ventures and access venture capital with a green hue, click the link or visit us at av.vc/funds/greend. Now back to the show.

Sam:
As a reminder, the Tech Optimist podcast is for the informational purposes only. It's not personalized advice and it's not an offer to buy or sell securities for additional important details, please see the text description accompanying this episode.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Hi everyone. I'm Laura Bordewieck Rippy. I'm managing partner at Alumni Ventures and thrilled to bring you this Tech Optimist with one of my favorite companies, Gatik. I'm here with Gautam Narang, who is the CEO of Gatik and someone I've known now for quite a few years, we've been working together and thrilled to share the story. So why don't we introduce the company to everyone. How do you position Gatik today and what you're accomplishing and sort of the elevator pitch, if you will, for all of our listeners?

Gautam Narang:
For sure. Firstly, thank you so much for having me on. I was super excited about the podcast today. Gatik is an autonomous trucking company. We focus on B2B short haul logistic segments. So we call this the middle mile segment of supply chain. At a very high level, think of us as filling the gap between long haul trucking on one end, which is usually highway driving only moving goods interstate. And the other end of the spectrum is last mile delivery. So between these two ends, there is a niche of a market that we call the middle mile that we as a company are now focused on.
And the best part is the problem that we are going after is more constrained, more structured. So getting to the point of commercialization and scaling is faster and relatively easier than some of the other applications in the autonomous space.

Sam:
All right. I'm going to add a few more words into Gatik's philosophy and a bit about where they are, what they are, who they are and everything like that. So I'm on their about page as you can see right here up on the screen at gatik.ai/about. And I'm just going to read it because I think the graphics are really nice and the photos are incredible. And I love when a company really invests in their marketing systems and their marketing assets. So I'm going to prop them up a little bit.
So their first page reads, the future of freight is here. At Gatik, our philosophy has always been simple use autonomous technology to help companies optimize their supply chains today - not five years from now. Since our first delivery, we've remained steadfast in our mission. So in 2017, Gatik started their journey. They're founded in Silicon Valley by our guest today and then Arjun and then their other chief engineer Apeksha. And then in June of 2019, they started getting to commercial deliveries for Walmart. They launched their first commercial service for Walmart between a warehouse and retail location in Bentonville Arkansas. They then expanded into Canada. They then started more industry leading partnerships with Isuzu, Ryder and Goodyear, which we're going to get into a little bit later with the conversation. And then they started in February of 2021, started to invest in autonomous electric trucks where this was the industry-first autonomous electric trucks, transport customer orders from a Walmart supercenter and New Orleans to a pickup location in another area of Louisiana.
So then Walmart goes driverless in November of 2021. And then in 2022, Gatik disrupts traditional class eight market. So they began transporting Georgia Pacific goods to network of 34 Sam's Club's stores in Dallas disrupting traditional class eight regional distribution network. And then in August of that year, their operations have expanded. And then October of that year, Gatik and Loblaw make history by launching their online grocery deliveries from Loblaw's PC Express system in Brampton Ontario without a safety driver behind the steering wheel, which is a Canadian-first.
And then March of 2023, Gatik moves goods for Kroger. In September of 2023, Gatik and Tyson Foods deploy autonomous trucks in Northwestern Arkansas. And then in May of this year, Gatik partners with Isuzu to mass produce SAE level four autonomous trucks. So state-of-the-art technology here so far, they've started to deliver their promise of autonomy to California, Ontario Canada, Arkansas and Texas. But that doesn't mean they can't expand anymore.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
That is what I have always loved. You are solving the meatiest, meatiest part of the supply chain, this repeat routes with partners that are deep and want to stay with you and build those relationships over time. Maybe we can double-click on some of those big partnerships because you have been working with some very impressive brands for quite a long time.

Gautam Narang:
Yes. So today Gatik works with about 10 Fortune 500 customers. These are customers across different verticals. So initially, we started out with a focus on retailers, grocers, then expanded that focus to e-commerce companies, logistics companies, and then more recently distribution and CPG as well. And these are some of the largest brands in the world with very large fleets. And we are on a mission to help automate those fleets so that we can move goods more efficiently and safely between their businesses, which are typically distribution centers to other DCs or stores.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
That's right. You're not going to share any of those brands with us, are you?

Gautam Narang:
Well, the ones that are public, we have been working with Walmart since 2019. Kroger is another partner. Loblaw, which is Canada's largest retailer, has been a partner since 2020. And then recently Pitney Bowes, Georgia-Pacific, and a few others as well.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
So I'm so glad you're here and one of the fun things to do is how did Gatik get started. What was that founding vision? What was the founding story? I know there's a good family piece to this too, so I'd love to hear that

Gautam Narang:
For sure. So, Gatik, we have three founders. I'm one of the founders and then my other two founders, Arjun and Apeksha. So, Arjun is my older brother. Him and I have been doing robotics for over 15 years now. Had an early start and then we have spent about 15 years developing core technology for robots and self-driving vehicles. Fast-forward to 2017 is when we decided to start Gatik, and we had two criteria to start the company. The first one was solving a real customer pain point. And I know it sounds obvious and it should be obvious, but that was not the case for our industry back in 2016 and 2017. The thinking was we'll solve the technology first and then figure out the use case or the business model. So most of the companies were promising that by 2020 and 2021, this problem would be solved.
For me and my founding team, having spent many years developing the core technology, we were not believers in that timeline. So we really wanted to one, obsess over a customer pain point and build technology and solutions around it. So that was the first criteria behind the company. The second criteria was we really wanted to focus on an application that we believe was more near-term from a commercialization and scaling standpoint.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Right.

Gautam Narang:
And we found this use case, the middle mile or B2B short-haul use case as the perfect fit and the perfect starting point where the customers, they had a growing need around moving goods from DCs to stores. And you combine that with a driver shortage, it makes for a very compelling value proposition. And then in addition to that, the fact that we can operate the trucks back and forth on known and repeatable routes constraining the autonomy problem, gets us to commercialization and scaling faster. So middle mile we believe is the perfect starting point. I call this the Goldilocks of the AB problem, where it's hard enough that not every random company can do it, but it's not as hard as let's say a robot accident that would require decades of R&D efforts and billions of dollars to get to the point of commercialization and scale.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
I love that. And it is boldly humble, right? It is a huge opportunity. The amount of these repeat routes that have to happen and have to happen across the country is so real. The fact that you commercialized it with Walmart originally, right? They've been like a building partner for you from so many years ago. And then to recognize that this is then the starting point, you can build a bigger business beyond this, but this opportunity is enormous in and of itself and it has so many fabulous attributes for autonomous driving and the way that you have already sort of answered that with over a thousand trips and to all of those with no driver involved. I mean, you've done amazing things at Gatik. We're so proud to be on board, Gautam.
So the underlying software platform of Gatik. I mean, you guys have been doing artificial intelligence before. It was cool and machine learning and sort of the intelligence behind us. Can you unpack that a little bit, give our listeners a sense of the software underneath the hood?

Gautam Narang:
For sure. So the reason we chose this use case or this market segment was we have the benefit of operating our trucks back and forth on known and repeatable routes. And at the heart of any driving technology is using AI and machine learning to basically get the vehicles to learn how to navigate urban scenarios or hybrid driving scenarios. So our technical stack is AI-first, meaning all the decision-making is happening in a learning fashion, but we also believe that it's important to have guardrails from a more traditional robotics approach as well.
So at a very high level, think of our technical approach as hybrid. Hybrid in a way that it's AI-first, but then we have safety dependencies or the guardrails from more traditional, more deterministic classical robotics technique. So we get the best of both worlds where the decisions are not pre-programmed. We don't use a rule-based technique, rather we use an AI-first learning-based technique with the right guardrails so that the trucks, our trucks are always following the traffic rules. They are doing what they're supposed to do in a safe fashion.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Right. Is there a way you could visualize for us what one of your customers is using? What's that scenario going from one distribution center to the next every week taking right-hand turns, tell me a little bit more about that sort of common scenario. What's a use case that people can get their arms and hands around?

Gautam Narang:
Yes. So typically we operate our trucks for about 20 hours every day. So moving goods from our customer's distribution center to the retail store. So we start our day, the truck shows up at the loading door. Our staff, they would do the loading. And the good thing is we designed routes in a way that prioritizes safety and ease of technology, meaning the fact that we are moving goods and not people. We have the luxury to choose routes that are maybe slightly longer but safer and easier. So we designed routes where we can, let's say take three right turns to avoid an unprotected left turn. We can avoid schools, hospitals, fire stations, all of that is fair game, right? A bag of potatoes won't care if you take a slightly longer but safer and easier route to get from point A to point B. And we have that luxury because we are moving goods, not people over short distances. So that's how we have designed the whole technology and that's how we choose routes that are in line with our technology and product roadmap, prioritizing safety.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
And that's part of why you're in so many states right now. How many geographies are you running now?

Gautam Narang:
Now over four and now we're actively growing our market presence as well. So there are about three or four markets that we are going live in the coming months and part of next year as well. So very much in growth and expansion mode.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
So what are those four states in case people see the trucks out on the road?

Gautam Narang:
Yes. So in Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth. Texas has been one of our biggest market. We serve about seven, eight customers out of that market. And then we have also been in Northwest Arkansas since 2019. This was initially with the Walmart and more recently with the Tyson Foods. We have one more customer that we have not yet announced for that market. And then in Canada, we have been doing operations for Loblaw since 2020. And densifying our presence in Greater Toronto area as well. There are few other markets that are not public yet.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
You have to keep some secrets for us, so we stay tuned, right?

Sam:
So now this next section, we're going to sort of talk about more of the business model and achievements behind Gatik, but I want to sort of help define a few things. When I hear about the middle mile in transportation and distribution, I'm not exactly sure what that is or what that means, right? Because I'm not a truck driver, I don't work in distribution or factories or warehouses and I want to provide some context. I think it's a really fascinating thing where I just keep thinking about how you order one thing on Amazon and sometimes there's next-day delivery where it ends up at your doorstep and it feels like magic, right? So in my head, I've always thought, how does that work? How is it possible that I could order one very specific niche thing and it's literally at my door the next day. And so the middle mile pays a very crucial role in that. It's the vital link between the first and last mile of the supply chain. So let's sort of define this right?
So the middle mile delivery refers to the transportation of goods between warehouses, distribution centers and fulfillment centers. It bridges the gap between the initial collection of products from manufacturers, the first mile, and the final delivery to customers or the last mile. So route structure. Middle mile routes are typically repetitive and predictable, often involving transportation between fixed locations. Hence, why this is such a good opportunity or sort of obstacle in the road that machine learning and AI can sort of help automate, right?
This stage deals with larger quantities of goods usually shipped in bulk on pallets compared to smaller packages in last mile delivery, which is more of the Amazon scenario that I was talking about. So minimal transportation can cover significant distances, sometimes crossing regional or even international borders. So let's talk about some advantages of optimizing the middle mile. So cost reduction. Companies can achieve significant savings by optimizing the segment of their supply chain. Competitive edge. Passing on cost savings to customers can provide a market advantage. Increased adaptability. Greater control over middle mile operations allows for quicker adaptation to changes and enhanced efficiency. So streamlining this process can lead to faster overall delivery times and improved inventory management.
So technology and optimization. This is really where Gatik comes in. So software can help automate recurring and repetitive middle mile routes. So let's take Dallas, Texas for example. Dallas and Fort Worth, which is a market example that I think Gautam brought up earlier. So I don't know the exact players here, but point A let's say is in Dallas, point B, let's say is in Fort Worth in Texas. And say Walmart, the company or another large Fortune 500 company travels the same distance, the same route, the same directions multiple times throughout a distribution cycle. So, Gatik's thought or their reason for creating their technology is that driver that would be driving that same route every single day, the super monotonous, repetitive machine-like behavior, why don't you literally give it to a machine so that driver can drive the more complicated routes, right?
So some trends with this. There's in-house operations. So some large retailers like Amazon, bringing back the Amazon scenario are developing their own middle mile fleets for better control and efficiency. And expansion of networks. So companies are expanding their middle mile networks to cover more regions and improve overall supply chain performance. So by focusing and optimizing the middle mile, companies can significantly enhance their overall logistics operations leading to improved efficiency, reduce costs, and better customer service.
All right. That's my spiel. We're going to take a second for an ad and then we're going to hop right into all the achievements that Gatik has added to their shelf over the last few years.

Speaker 5:
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Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
So let's talk about some trophies. You guys have won all sorts of awards and there's been some victories in terms of customers and hires. Like when you go to sleep at night or when you think about this period so far with Gatik, what are some trophies that you hold close, Gautam?

Gautam Narang:
The biggest one I would say is the TIME's Best Invention for 2022. And it's close to our heart. And my heart is because that was for a milestone that we are very proud of. So, Gatik in 2021 became the first and the only autonomous trucking company to pull the driver out in a commercial capacity. We hit this milestone with our partner Walmart at their headquarters in Arkansas. So we got recognized for this achievement in this milestone and TIME awarded us for the best invention of pulling the driver out in the trucking space and hitting this milestone first [inaudible 00:25:24].

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
That is fantastic. I do remember that. That is such a big deal. So back in 2021, you pulled the driver out in the first enterprise situation. It was in what city? What country, what state? Sorry.

Gautam Narang:
In Arkansas.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
In Arkansas. So it was in Arkansas. So it was with Walmart. So how did you celebrate? How did the team embrace it? Obviously, TIME recognizing you as the best invention in 2022 as a big part, but what did that feel like in the team? In terms of culture building, it must've been great.

Gautam Narang:
That was amazing and that proved out the original thesis that we had, right? The thesis was constraining the problem will get us to drive it out faster and safer. It was great to see that we were able to prove that out. And since then the company has been focused on scaling our driver-out operations. So we are very much focused on doing that across multiple markets and multiple customers. So scale is the name of the game. But yeah, it was great to be able to prove that out and do that with 100% safety record, right? So one important thing to note there is our driver-out operation was not a one-off thing. So we have been doing a driver-out ... We have done thousands of driver-out commercial deliveries where-

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
A thousand? Is that what you said?

Gautam Narang:
More than 1,000. Yeah.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Wow. 1,000 driver-out commercial deliveries. Fantastic.

Gautam Narang:
So no one behind the steering wheel is moving actual customer goods in a revenue-generating fashion. But since then, it's very important for us to scale. So that's what we are focused on. And the milestone that now we as a company are focused on is freight only at scale or driver-out operations, but doing that in a scalable way.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Fantastic. So part of what is amazing for folks to come into getting to know Gatik is how complex and interdisciplinary that the business has been to build. I think that is a really interesting piece. So you have these big anchor partnerships like a Walmart, like a Loblaws, right? You have some OEM partnerships, you need to get smart with regulations and convince local, states, probably maybe some national regulators in terms of that. Can you give us a sense of what are those legs of the stool that you've built out in a really comprehensive way to get you to this point?

Gautam Narang:
Yeah, that's a very important point that level four driving at scale, no one company can do it alone. Many companies try doing everything on their own and those companies are not around today. So we believe that a partnership-heavy approach is critical to be able to unlock scale. And today Gatik has a very strong partnership ecosystem. So we talked a lot about our commercial partners, but if I talk about our supply chain, OEM and tier-one partners are critical to be able to get more trucks on the road.
So we recently announced expansion of our partnership with Isuzu Motors. Isuzu is one of the largest OEMs for light and medium-duty trucks. And now together, Gatik and Isuzu are mass-producing level-four-ready trucks. So this is an industry first milestone where an OEM and an AV developer have committed to setting up a dedicated production facility where level-four-ready vehicles are coming off the production line in a scalable way. So that is basically something that we are very proud of.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
That's a big trophy. That is a big trophy. I remember when that was a twinkle in your eye. What was that? Like 2018 or whenever. Years and years ago, that you have been building that relationship with Isuzu. So now you have an actual production line and trucks with the Gatik software and the Isuzu hardware come off the line to service customers like Walmart with the 1010th or the 20000th commercial ride where there is no human driver. It is all autonomous vehicle with the Gatik software and the Isuzu truck. That is amazing. That is a big trophy too.

Gautam Narang:
Yeah. Maybe Laura, one clarification. That facility will be live in 2027, but yeah, we have been working with Isuzu since 2021.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Okay. Sorry, good clarification on the dates there.

Gautam Narang:
Yes.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
I get excited about how long we've been working together and how long that relationship has been in place. And I know it is hard. You're building things with moats that make it difficult for others to contemplate-

Gautam Narang:
Exactly.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
And that depth of experience that you bring to this is really important

Gautam Narang:
For sure. And then maybe just to highlight two other categories of partnership. The next one is just our fleet partners. So this is Ryder, Goodyear. So these are the partners that are helping us with the fleet leasing, servicing and maintenance. Our business model is very scalable where we don't own the assets. So we have partners like Ryder, they own the assets and lease it to us and then we provide service to our customers. And then also we lean on their infrastructure for servicing and maintenance. So it allows us to expand to newer markets without having to invest anything in the underlying infrastructure.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
That's right. So, Gatik is really ... you're taking the juice, the intelligence, the brain power of this and using partners that can do the block and tackle of taking care of trucks.

Gautam Narang:
Exactly.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
In other parts of it. But I also love that you guys are so embracing of partnerships. A lot of startups don't recognize that you can get further faster if you have a community around you. And I think that's been central to what you've built from the beginning. So love to see that.
Let's turn now to safety and regulations. So you have vehicles out on the road. How do you think about safety? How do you think about regulations? What new ways should we consider this in the context of Gatik?

Gautam Narang:
So safety is front and center to everything that we are doing at Gatik. And one of the things that we are very proud of is being proactive with all the key stakeholders about safety. And to be a bit more specific, at the heart of our safety case framework is making sure that we are giving independent third party auditors access to how we are developing the technology and how we are deploying the technology. And the reason we are doing this is we want to make sure that there is increased accountability, increased transparency that will lead to a higher trust when it comes to this kind of technology. And just maybe taking a step back, just talking about what are some of the, I would say, debates in the AV space when it comes to safety.
So right now there is a question mark on what is good enough. For the longest of time, companies in the robot axis space have said, okay, the performance of a technology, as long as it's better than a human driver, that is good enough. So how do you define good enough is where the debate is going on. So our framework on defining what's good enough is get all the different stakeholders to the table. This is us as the developer of the technology, our customers as the adopter, the local regulators, policy makers, first responders, and emergency services. So together we come to the table and define what is acceptable and what is good enough.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Great, great. You guys are really at the head and leaning and sort of leading everyone down the path of a more impressive definition of this. Let's turn a little bit to your partnerships. So I know you have some anchor commercial partnerships, OEM partnerships. Can you open the door here for us to understand how Gatik has been built, that you're not alone here, you have very large partners that have helped to make this possible?

Gautam Narang:
Yes. So having a strong ecosystem of partnerships is very important, right? I know one company can do it alone, which is scaling level-four technology. So what we are really good at is the core autonomous driving software stack and owning the customer relationships. But when it comes to the platform itself, we work very closely with our OEM and tier-one partners. One of the key OEM partners is Isuzu Motors. We've been working with them since 2021. Initially, the focus of the collaboration was building a level-four-ready, level-four-capable platform. This is everything from redundant driver-wide system to other aspects of the vehicle itself. And then more recently, Gatik and Isuzu announced a collaboration to mass-produce level-four-ready trucks. The production facility would be up and running in 2027. And this is an industry-first milestone where an AV developer and an OEM have come together, made a formal commitment with serious capital allocated towards the initiative of mass-producing level-four-ready trucks. So we are super excited about this partnership and this will help unlock the scale and help us meet the needs of our customers that are eager and hungry for more trucks.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Congratulations. That is a monster. Big accomplishment. And it's been built over multiple years from '21 to '27, that is a very significant amount of commitment and capital to that. So you've got your commercial partners, you've got Isuzu as your key OEM partner. I know you have some partners with the fleet management that's like Ryder and folks. So really multiple steps along the way so that what Gatik delivers is focus on the software platform and kind of stitching everybody together and having a good customer relationship. And the ability to have these partnerships enables you to know that you have a partner in the game that you know what to do and they know what to do in their expertise. It's kind of the best of all of them. So that's terrific. So any surprises you want to share with our audience? So unexpected learnings that you didn't anticipate?

Gautam Narang:
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm focused a lot on scaling our original culture. So that's top of mind. So unexpected learning here would be scaling culture is not that easy. So it's challenging. And I think obviously early on, it is easier to maintain the core values in the culture of the company. The team is lean, everything is visible. But as you scale, you have to be very deliberate about communicating the core values and the culture of the company, why you're doing what you're doing, and then also demonstrating through actions that you're living and breathing your core values and culture.
So for me, the learning here was things that I thought would be obvious. The actions that I thought would be obvious is not that obvious. So you have to be very vocal about sharing who you are with the broader team, especially as you're scaling and then living and breathing and showing through actions, the core values that you have. So being deliberate about the values and the culture is super important, especially during the scaling phase. So scaling culture, I took that for ... I wouldn't say for granted, but I thought that would be easier, but now I'm much more deliberate about that.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Right. Can you give us a peek underneath the hood? What are a couple of those values that you hold dear?

Gautam Narang:
My favorite one is we as a team, as a company are boldly humble. So we are very bold in our actions, in our decision-making. We have huge ambitions, but we are also very humble in a way that it's a long journey and we are in the early innings of this journey. So there is a lot of work to be done and maybe tying it to how we are positioned. So we are going after this middle mile segment today, but we definitely have aspirations to tackle the full autonomous transportation ecosystem, move upstream and downstream as well. So that is basically a core value that I'm very proud of, where the team is very, I would say fierce and very bold, but at the same time very humble as well. We don't, I would say, bullshit ourselves in a way that we keep it real and we understand that there's a long journey ahead of us.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
I love that. That is absolutely you too. You live it, right? That is who you are. So that really strikes on. Boldly humble is a fantastic value and one that folks can remember and embrace and really live. Okay. Well, last question. It gets to be your ask. So what would you ask of the Alumni Ventures and more broadly the Tech Optimist community? Is there a way that we can be helpful to you?

Gautam Narang:
I would say talent is top of mind. So we as a company are hiring across the board. So we have started expanding our non-engineering functions as well. So specifically growing our finance team, growing our operations team, and this is our fleet operations and central operations as well. So any referrals there or folks that would be interested in joining a fast-growing, very exciting company in a space that is highly visible, we'd love to put that out there where any referrals would be great. And then across different functions. So we as an organization are in growth mode.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
I love that. I love that. Well, a couple ways where people can take action on that. We will make sure to put a link to your job board. And just so everyone knows, there is one job board for Alumni Ventures called jobs.av.vc that pulls in opportunities from Gatik and the other 1,399 portfolio companies or whatever the number's up to today. And it is just amazing to see the growth and also just the complexity of what you're doing that you're now in these business roles. I couldn't be more proud. This has been such a treat. We are really happy to be on board your journey and appreciate your time today. This has been terrific.

Gautam Narang:
For sure. Thank you so much for having me on, Laura, and thank you so much for the support that Alumni Ventures have put into Gatik, so really appreciate it.

Laura Bordewieck Rippy:
Fantastic. Thanks, buddy.

Gautam Narang:
Perfect.

Sam:
Thanks again for tuning into the Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you'd give us a rating on whichever podcast app you're using and remember to subscribe to keep up with each episode.
The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions. So please email us at info@techoptimist.vc with any of those and be sure to visit our website at av.vc. As always, keep building.