[Funding alert] Autonomous industrial vehicle maker Ati Motors raises $3.5M in pre-Series A round

Bengaluru-based all-electric autonomous industrial vehicle maker Ati Motors has raised $3.5 million (about Rs 26.12 crore) in a funding round led by Blume Ventures and Exfinity Venture Partners, among others.

The pre-Series A funding will be deployed for manufacturing and deployment of a large fleet of autonomous vehicles in factories and warehouses, in both domestic and global markets, the company said on Wednesday.

Ati Motors had earlier raised a seed fund from Village Global, a Bay Area based-early stage fund backed by the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, among others, according to the release.

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MFV Partners and a syndicate on LetsVenture led by Livspace founder Ramakant Sharma also participated in the round, Ati Motors said.

Founded by Saurabh Chandra, V Vinay, and Saad Nasser, Ati Motors is a full-stack autonomous platform for material movement in industrial environments.

Ati Motors said it is also getting enquiries for its AV from foreign markets, including the US, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, and is all set to make its mark globally. "We are now fueled up and ready to accelerate our go-to market plans," Chandra said.

Ati Motors autonomous cargo vehicle Sherpa uses a technology approach similar to that used in driverless cars (the likes of Tesla and Google) and is more versatile than warehouse or humanoid robots.

While Sherpa Tug, a one-tonne trolley puller, has been deployed in tough manufacturing environments with very rough conditions, Sherpa Lite has found uptake in ecommerce warehouses for order fulfilment.

The Sherpa Tug has been successfully deployed at a multinational auto OEM's manufacturing unit in Chennai, it said.

"We are excited to be a part of the Ati Motors journey. With close to three million Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) units expected to be shipped annually by 2030, the market opportunity is enormous (over $20 billion)," said Anirvan Chowdhury (Investment team, Blume Ventures).

"Their (Ati Motors) ready-to-deploy Autonomous Mobile Robots will not just be helpful in manufacturing floors but also be transformational in many more use cases like warehousing and outdoor mobility," said Nihar Ranjan, Venture Partner at Exfinity.