Gatik is an American tech company that specializes in the development of technology for the deployment of autonomous vehicles. It’s a new player that has made a dramatic entrance into the tech scene and it’s a company that has piqued our interest as one of the fast-rising up and coming tech firms in the modern age. If you’re not yet familiar with Gatik, it’s only going to be a matter of time before you hear the name mentioned in the news. Our research into the fast-growing new startup has yielded some impressive discoveries that are worth sharing. Here are 20 things you probably didn’t know about Gatik to bring you up to speed.

1. Gatik is a new automotive tech startup

According to Crunchbase, Gatik is classified as a technology company in the automotive industry. It neatly fits into three main categories because of the scope of its operations. It specializes in research into and the development of new technologies for deploying fleets of autonomous vehicles through the use of artificial intelligence technologies. This is why it is listed across Automotive, Autonomous Vehicles, and Artificial Intelligence.

2. Gatik is a young business

Gatik was founded in 2017. The company has not been active for very long. It has been in operation for just 4 years as of 2021. This is usually the make or break period for any new business and Gatik has seemingly thrived in its growth and expansion in a short time.

3. Gatik is led by a small core team of executives

The core executive leadership team at Gatik is small, consisting of just three members. Each member is a dynamic leader and together they have achieved remarkable results. Gautam Narang is a co-founder and serves as the chief executive officer at Gatik. Arjun Narang is a co-founder and serves as the chief technology officer. Apeksha Kumavat is a co-founder and chief engineer, making up the third member of the core executive leadership team.

4. Gatik has a strong support team

The small team of executives, who are also the three co-founders of Gatik has surrounded themselves with a highly competent staff that supports them in their company’s mission. Richard Steiner is the head of policy and communications. Sam Saad is the head of strategic initiatives. Mark Petrosoniak is the senior manager of strategy and business operations. Saad Ishtiaque is the field operations manager. Douglas Ellison is the senior AV operator. Nicholas Moore is the data annotation coordinator. Russell Wons is the robotics software engineer, and Simon Bontempo is the mechanical design engineer.

5. Gatik has listed one board member

So far, the board of directors for Gatik is comprised of just one member. Dror Berman is a founding partner at Innovation Endeavors. He has founded one organization and is also an investor with one portfolio company and one exit. He provides advisement for the executive leadership team at Gatik in the development of their strategic and financial planning.

6. Gatik uses a small number of technologies for its website

Unlike many other large operations, Gatik has kept the use of technology products to a low to moderate amount. The website provides a smooth and seamless experience for visitors. We found it to be easy to navigate. Gatik uses 23 technologies actively to power the website. These technologies are distributed across 12 technology products and services including iPhone Mobile Compatible, SSL by Default, VMeta, jQuery, Google Analytics, HTML5, and a few others.

7. Gatik stands out against the competition

Gatik maintains a strong edge over its competitors in the tech industry by offering a unique approach in comparison. This has been made possible by securing four registered patents in the controlling category. On top of that, Gatik has secured one registered trademark in the scientific and electric apparatus and instruments category. What this means is that Gatik is the legal owner of the intellectual properties contained within the patents and trademark. No other companies can copy, imitate, or use these protected properties. this helps Gatik to stand out among the rest with its unique and different platform. In a highly competitive industry, having components that help you to stand out can help you to gain a larger share of the consumer base as loyal customers.

8. Gatik is seeing record growth in website visits

The number of monthly visits to the Gatik website is not that high, but there are encouraging signs that have shown up in the website analytics. Over the past 30 days, there were 2,996 visits made to the site reflecting a 12.65 percent decrease in the overall number of monthly visits to the site. This has resulted in Gatik achieving a rank of number 2,008,145 of the millions of websites registered on the world wide web.

9. Gatik is the most popular with Canadians

Although Gatik has its headquarters located in Palo Alto, California in the United States, the website analytics show that it is the most popular with Canadians. The largest percentage of web traffic comes from people in Canada. Forty-two percent of the visitors are from Canada and the has been a remarkably high growth of 145.97 percent in the products and services offered by Gatik. Thirty-four percent of the visitors are from the country of India, and twenty-five percent are from South Korea.

10. Gatik is a venture capital-funded organization

Gatik has piqued the interest of four venture capital investment firms. This is fairly remarkable in itself for a company that is barely 4 years into its operations. The most recent round of Series B funding closed on August 31, 20201. It has participated in four rounds of VC funding which puts it into the category of an early-stage CV company. The total amount raised so far is $121.6 million.

11. Gatik has secured high investor confidence

Investor confidence in Gatik is high. The startup has eleven investors, four of which served as lead investors in the various rounds of VC fundraising. Trucks Venture Capital and Intact Ventures are the most recent investors to join the efforts. They are joined by Innovation Endeavors, Wittington Ventures, Dynamo, FM Capital, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Government of Ontario, also a lead investor through a Grant, and a few other investors who prefer to remain anonymous at this point. Gatik’s leadership has done an exceptional job of throwing their pitches at these large investment firms. It’s not often that a young company can attract so many big investors to fund their projects.

12. Gatik is a privately held enterprise

Gatik’s leadership decided to retain the company as a privately owned business so far. You won’t find stock shares on any of the public stock exchanges because it has not yet filed for an IPO. Investments in Gatik at this time are limited to private VC investment firms. It’s doing exceptionally well with this funding strategy and so far we’ve not seen any evidence of plans to take it to the public arena.

13. Gatik is a short-haul operation

According to Techcrunch, Gatik is committed to providing transportation of goods for short-distance transport. It maintains a narrow focus on this distance as it is building its network of autonomous delivery vehicles. The company launched its Gatik AI out of stealth mode two years ago and it has since launched pilots with Loblaw, a Canadian retail giant, and Walmart. It’s out to prove that box trucks and self-driving technology is the best solution for hauling products over short distances.

14. Gatik is in expansion mode

The founder and CEO of Gatik, Gautam Narang confirmed that the strategic investment funds received from Koch Industries will help the company to further expand its pilot programs. They were currently transporting goods through their pilot programs in Ontario, Canada, and in Arkansas and Louisiana in the United States. There are plans in place to further expand these autonomous delivery services.

15. Gatik is entering a new vertical market

Gatik plans to expand into a new vertical with a new partnership that it has recently formed with Isuzu. In 2020, the two companies agreed on a manufacturing contract. Gatik has agreed to mass-produce medium-duty autonomous trucks with the automaker by early in the year 2023. Their goal is to expand the fleet of driverless vehicles that are now on the road. Yes, some of its fleets are completely driverless and the goal for the short-term is to remove all drivers from its delivery system. Gatik plans to add more trucks to the fleet through the new deal it struck with Isuzu.

16. Gatik is moving into Texas

“Gatik has expanded its operation into the state of Texas. It has already opened its autonomous trucking facility that is located in the Alliance Texas Mobility Innovation Zone. This is a residential and industrial rea that is a part of the planned development for the cities of the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a transportation and logistics hub. Gatik currently carries freight for multiple customers in the area, but it’s not sharing the names yet. This is the first strategic move for its expansion into Texas and there are plans in place to further grow into other key cities within the state in the short term.

17. Gatik is currently hiring

The CEO of Gatik also confirmed that the company is currently hiring. He and the executive leadership team plans to double the size of its current workforce, which is around 70 workers currently within a span of six to nine months. Many o the job openings will be in the State of Texas to staff its new operations, with others distributed throughout the headquarters in Palo Alto, Toronto, and their Louisiana and Arkansas locations. When the hiring frenzy has been completed it is estimated that Gatik will boast of a workforce of 150 workers.

18. Gatik is founded by autonomous tech veterans

According to LinkedIn, the co-founders of Gatik come with a wealth of knowledge and experience from previous jobs in the autonomous tech industry. Gautam Narang is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. He earned his Master’s of Science degree in Robotics. He is a serial entrepreneur who founded Maverick Robotics of Delhi, India, serving as its CEO for 1 year and 11 months. He was a co-founder and team leader of Team Gatik in 2010, the creator of a semi-autonomous humanoid series named GATIK The Progressive. He also acted as a visiting researcher at numerous automotive plants including the Honda Research Institute Japan, Col Ltd in Tokyo, Waseda University in Tokyo, and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. He was also a Research and Development Engineer for Deltratron Ltd. in Helsinki, Finland.

19. Arjun Narang is just as qualified

Co-founder Arjun Narang received his education at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. He earned his bachelor of engineering degree in electronics engineering. He went on to earn his master of science degree from the prestigious Purdue University in computer engineering with a concentration in robotics and artificial intelligence. He is also a serial co-founder who established maverick Robotics in October of 2012. He served as the engineering lead for the company at its headquarters in India. Arjun was also a co-founder and technical head for the Team Gatik Research group in New Delhi, India. he worked there for 3 years and 10 months.

20. Apeksha Kumavat is the third co-founder

The third co-founder of Gatik is Apeksha Kuavat. She also earned her master’s degree from Purdue University. She studied electrical and computer engineering. She started her career in 2012 as an automation engineer at Siemens in Mumbai, India. She worked at AlgoAnalytic as a software engineer for a little over a year. She also served as a software engineering intern at CNH Industrial in Burr Ridge, Illinois. Before she helped establish Gatik, she worked for the Ford Motor Company as a computer vision lead in the autonomous vehicle systems engineering department. She like her colleagues and partners comes with a high level of knowledge and competency in the autonomous discipline.

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