Gecko will use the money to develop industrial inspection robots.

Investors that plugged into Gecko Robotics’ $40 million series B funding included marquee names such as Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and Next47. Also opening up their wallets were Mark Cuban, SoftBank senior managing partner Deep Nishar, and Gusto CEO Josh Reeves. Drive Capital led the raise.

Gecko Robotics

Gecko Robotics is based out of Pittsburgh and was founded in 2016 by Jake Loosararian, its 28-year-old co-founder and CEO.

The company develops a range of robots for application in power, gas, oil, and manufacturing industries. The robots can inspect banks, boilers, and pipes for cracks, erosion and other kinds of degradation that can lead to maintenance failures or accidents. The robots can also climb walls and other equipment that are too high, or hazardous, for humans to reach.

The Gecko Robotics robots carry sensors, transducers, and HD cameras. Further, humans can control these robots remotely. Alternatively, some of these robots can self-navigate.

Moreover, the Gecko Robotics software can predict failures from the data that is collected by the robots. The predictive analysis by the software relies on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning techniques.

Critical infrastructure problems

“We are growing fast solving critical infrastructure problems that affect our lives, and can even save lives,” said Loosararian. “We’ve developed a revolutionary way to use robots as an enabler to capture data for predictability of infrastructure; reducing failure, explosions, emissions and billions of dollars of loss each year.”

“I see amazing potential for Gecko’s business model; they are on the path to becoming a market leader in their industry,” said Mark Kvamme, lead investor, and partner at Drive Capital.

Fast growth

Meanwhile, Gecko Robotics has opened a 20,000 square-foot office in Houston and has offices in Austin and Pittsburgh. Also, the business has grown from 45 employees to 115 just over the past year. Its current range comprises 60 robots and there are plans to add another 40 over the next 12 months.

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