Episode 62 | Investing in Growth

Annant Patel, Director, Koch Disruptive Technologies, and Gautam Narang, CEO & Co-Founder, Gatik joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss investing in growth.

The conversation begins with Gautam discussing why he decided to run Gatik as a business from day one and why the team focused on the middle mile.

When we started Gatik we decided to focus on an opportunity that was being overlooked by almost every AV developer, which was automating on-road goods transportation. – Gautam Narang

As Gatik has scaled and grown as a business, Grayson asks Annant what first attracted Koch Disruptive Technologies to Gatik.

We saw the tech is disruptive, going back to the investment philosophy, it was disruptive to Koch, it was disruptive to the supply chain and it’s good for society. – Annant Patel

Shifting the conversation to economics, Gautam explains how Gatik has been able to achieve profitability at the vehicle level.

Our operations are highly efficient. We operate our trucks over 20 hours daily, 7 days a week. – Gautam Narang

With a highly efficient operation, Gatik has begun to pass on savings to customers. In the history of Gatik, the company has not lost a single customer or partner. As Gatik prepares to turn five years old next year, the company is accelerating growth through partnerships with Walmart, Loblaw, Goodyear, Ryder, and Koch Industries.

Koch Disruptive Technologies is helping Gatik accelerate growth.

The alignment between KDT and Gatik was there since the very first meeting. – Gautam Narang

One of the advantages of a Koch partnership is Koch Labs that strategically accelerates growth for portfolio partners. Annant explains how Gatik is leveraging the Koch Labs opportunity.

Koch is investing for long-term growth.

We invest 90% of earnings back into Koch. That translates to about to $133 billion invested in growth and improvements since 2003. $30 billion was spent on technology investments and acquisitions in the last six years alone. – Annant Patel

With a long-term growth mindset, Grayson asks Annant what Koch’s vision is for autonomy.

The future is now. Gatik is pulling the future forward as we think about it. If you are not experimenting with automation and supply chain transformation, the way I say it is that we are already many years behind. – Annant Patel

With the supply chain disruptions actively affecting the economy and autonomous trucking and delivery vehicles offering a solution, Gautam shares his thoughts on the commercialization of autonomy and Gatik’s partnership with Walmart.

Gatik is laser-focused on the middle mile. Gautam explains why:

All of this started with the customer pain-point and the customer need. – Gautam Narang

The team at Gatik clearly saw the emerging trend of same-day delivery which would require new smaller distribution centers located closer to consumers.

Wrapping up the conversation, Annant and Gautam discuss the current state of the global supply chain.

Recorded on Thursday, October 21, 2021

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