Gather AI is the world’s leading autonomous inventory management company. Their solution uses autonomous commodity drones and artificial intelligence (AI) software to automate inventory monitoring for warehouse operators to decrease inventory costs, improve productivity, and boost revenue.
Pulse 2.0 interviewed Gather AI Vice President of Customer Success Sean Mitchell to learn more.
Sean Mitchell’s Background
Mitchell has over ten years of experience in supply chain and manufacturing, working in engineering, operations, and sales. And Mitchell said: “I’ve been with Gather AI for over three years now. Prior to Gather AI, I was a Strategic Business Development Manager with Fabrinet and a Mechanical Engineer with Anybots. I received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.”
Formation Of Gather AI
How did the idea for Gather AI come together? Mitchell shared:
“Our CEO and Co-Founder, Sankalp Arora, was inspired to start the company while researching with Carnegie Mellon University. He was developing the world’s first guaranteed safe, full-scale autonomous helicopter, funded by DARPA, with his future co-founders, Daniel Maturana and Geetesh Dubey. They interviewed hundreds of people to find the best commercial application of this technology, figure out where they could leverage it, and provide the most business benefit. They settled on warehouse inventory monitoring, and together they founded Gather AI in 2018.”
Core Products
What are Gather AI’s core products and features? Mitchell explained:
“At a high level, our drone-powered inventory monitoring solution improves warehouse visibility and traceability, decreasing the cost of accuracy, optimizing productivity, and boosting revenue.”
“Simply, our solution helps warehouse managers more easily track what’s in their warehouse, preventing misplaced or lost product, which can lead to overordering, delayed shipments, empty pallets, and more. It allows warehouse operators to see what’s on their floor in real-time.”
“With our solution, drones fly autonomously through a warehouse, taking images of pallet locations at 900 pallets per hour. Our machine learning (ML) algorithm reads barcodes and text, then analyzes the images and compares them with the warehouse management system (WMS). The solution then displays the results in a dashboard and automatically flags matches, empty locations, and exceptions so that warehouse operators can easily identify and fix inventory errors.”
Evolution Of Gather AI’s Technology
How has Gather AI’s technology evolved since launching? Mitchell noted:
“Our proprietary AI and ML are the keys to our success. Our AI allows the drones to fly in warehouses with no GPS, and our ML algorithm analyzes inventory pictures to identify barcodes, lot codes, text, expiration dates, and other information that warehouse operators need. The more warehouses we deploy in, the better our AI and ML gets.”
“Additionally, we continue to improve our dashboard as that’s where our customers see the most value. We recently launched an improved “Search by Inventory Attribute” dashboard function that allows users to search for a variety of inventory details, including by lot code. When searching by lot code, you can find the locations where the product is stored, view images of the product at these locations, and ensure the product is available for the manufacturing line. With this functionality, you can avoid a “line down” situation, which in some cases can cost thousands of dollars per minute and can require purchasing teams to expedite the material needed to get the line back up and running.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Gather AI’s most significant milestones? Mitchell cited:
“We launched commercially in 2021, and last year we raised a $10 million Series A, led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Xplorer Capital, Dundee Venture Capital, Expa, Bling Capital, XRC Ventures and 99 tartans. This helped us grow eight times over.”
“This year we were included in CB Insights’ Retail Tech 100 list of most promising retail tech startups of 2023, SupplyChainBrain’s Great Supply Chain Partner Awards, the Pittsburgh Inno Fire Awards, and Supply Chain Management Reviews’ NextGen Supply Chain Awards. And most recently, we acquired another industry leader, Ware. We now have 25 customers – more than any other autonomous inventory management company.”
“Multiple customers are using our solution in more than one warehouse. Most importantly for us, we continue to provide tremendous value to our customers, including finding over $1M worth of lost inventory for one customer and at another customer, reducing the full facility count from 90 days to 2.5 days.”
Customer Success Stories
Upon asking Mitchell about customer success stories, he commented:
“Barrett Distribution Centers, a third-party logistics company, wanted to improve their warehouse inventory monitoring. Their staff had been using forklifts and scanners to manually take inventory, which not only poses a safety risk but requires long, tedious hours. They were also experiencing high e-commerce demands, which meant closer inventory tracking to fulfill individual shipments.”
“With Gather AI, Barrett saved $250,000 in material handling equipment (MHE) and reallocated six cycle counters to do more value-added activities like researching variances, auditing and training to support operations.”
“Barrett is now scanning over 300 locations (up to 2,000 license plates) per flight hour in very narrow aisles (VNAs), which couldn’t be done with people. They also improved inventory accuracy by 70%. This resulted in more on-time shipments, reduced shrinkage and ultimately increased business.”
“Mostly important for Barrett as a 3PL, our solution was able to help them differentiate from other 3PLs, as prospective customers loved seeing the technology, and they were able to serve customers with very difficult inventory challenges, including a customer with 500K individual shoe boxes. You can hear more about Barrett’s experience here on our YouTube page. Because of this success, Barrett started with one warehouse but has grown to use our solution in multiple.”
Funding/Revenue
When asking Mitchell about the funding and the revenue model, he revealed:
“In 2022, we raised $10M in Series A funding. We anticipate launching a Series B financing process sometime next year or the year after.”
“Our business model is a software as a service model. We charge a monthly fee that includes drones, all of the drone accessories, and unlimited access to our dashboard. The customer doesn’t pay for the drones. We own the drones, and we will replace them free of charge within 24 hours if something happens. This varies depending on the number of pallet locations in a warehouse. We also charge an installation fee based on the number of pallet locations.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is Gather AI pursuing? Mitchell assessed:
“According to Interact Analysis, an industry research firm, “There will be 214,000 warehouses of >50,000 ft globally by 2027, up from 163,000 in 2021. By that year (2027), 20% of all warehouses will be fulfillment centers, largely as a result of the rise in e-commerce.”
“Our product is currently deployed in warehouses across third-party logistics, retail distribution, manufacturing, food & beverage, and health & beauty. But drone-powered inventory monitoring can be applied to any warehouse with racking. There’s huge opportunity for Gather AI to support businesses as e-commerce continues to grow and warehouse managers oversee more individual shipments.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Gather AI from its competition? Mitchell affirmed:
“A few factors make Gather AI stand out among other drone-powered inventory monitoring solutions.”
“First, we’re the only company using off-the-shelf drones to automate inventory monitoring in warehouses. Off-the-shelf drones are more reliable than custom-made drones and can be easily replaced if they get damaged.”
“Second, as mentioned previously, our proprietary AI and ML make our solution unique and improve over time.”
“Third, our solution doesn’t require customers to change their warehouse infrastructure. No WiFi or lights are necessary. This means our solution can operate anytime, whereas some competitors only operate at night when people are not in the warehouse. Gather AI is proven through production deployments at 25 customers, and we’ve scanned hundreds of thousands of pallets.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Gather AI’s future company goals? Mitchell concluded:
“We’re expanding visibility and traceability for customers with multiple warehouses in order to function as a complete network. This allows warehouse managers more comprehensive visibility, so, for example, they can track trends across their many warehouses. I also anticipate our solution being used outside of the warehouse in shipping yards in the coming years.”
