Vantora raises $100M to build industrial AI startups for corporate partners

Vantora, a startup studio formerly known as UP.Labs, has raised $100 million from Silversmith Capital Partners, the firm’s first outside investment since launching in 2022. The money will fund a shift toward physical AI, software that directs machines and hardware rather than chat interfaces, built specifically for the company’s corporate partners rather than for the open market.

Founder and CEO John Kuolt told TechCrunch that Vantora is moving toward what he calls a “proprietary M&A pipeline.” Under the old model, corporate partners invested in startups Vantora built and served as their first customers, but those companies could later be sold or offered to competitors. Under the new model, partners can fold the startups directly into their core businesses and keep the technology to themselves. Kuolt said the change matters because Vantora used to spike proposals that were too strategically sensitive for partners to let outside the company, even when those ideas carried the most value. “We were missing on the biggest value problems, which had the biggest upside because of that,” he said.

Kuolt pointed to industrial retrofitting as one example of what the new structure unlocks. “Imagine you’re a Fortune 100 industrial company and you need to retrofit all of your hardware and machines for autonomy,” he said. “You need to own that, it needs to be sovereign, and you can’t rely on a third party to go do that for you.” He said Vantora previously passed on an idea to use AI for J.B. Hunt’s business because the trucking company would not let the concept be shared outside the partnership. The proprietary pipeline now lets Vantora pursue that kind of work.

Vantora launched in 2022 with Porsche as its first corporate partner and has since built multiple startups for the automaker. It has also struck deals with Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, truck-trailer maker Wabash, and TDG, the parent company of Ashley Furniture. The firm has added new corporate customers in industrial manufacturing and in oil and gas, though it declined to name them.

From startup lab to proprietary pipeline

In its earlier form as UP.Labs, the firm was informally tied to venture firm Up.Partners, though never financially, according to Kuolt. Vantora still shares office space with the California-based VC but operates as a separate entity, and the $100 million from Silversmith marks its first outside capital of any kind.

What happens next depends on how many corporate partners choose to absorb a Vantora-built startup entirely rather than let it operate independently, and on which industrial and energy companies the firm eventually names as customers as its physical AI push continues.