Gecko Robotics brings in $73M for inspection robots

Gecko’s TOKA 3 is the fastest of its inspection robots. | Source: Gecko Robotics

Gecko Robotics, a company developing wall-climbing robots for inspections, raised $73 million in Series C funding. The company’s last funding round brought in $40 million.

The company’s technology is made for the power generation, oil and gas, heavy manufacturing and defense industries. Its TOKA Series robots, which includes the TOKA 3, TOKA 4, TOKA 4 GZ and TOKA Flex, are each designed to perform under certain circumstances.

The TOKA 3, for example, is better for inspections on medium-sized piping and high-temperature surfaces, while the TOKA 4 does better with boiler walls and curved surfaces. The TOKA 3 is able to cover 60 feet per minute, while the others in the series can reach a top speed of 30 feet per minute.

Gecko was co-founded by Jake Loosararian, now the CEO, and Troy Demmer, now the chief product officer. Loosararian started the company in 2013 and in 2016 joined efforts with Demmer. The company received $2.1 million in funding the same year.

“Jake is incredibly passionate about industrial infrastructure – which is a weird thing to be passionate about – but it’s been incredible seeing that dedication and drive translate into Gecko’s growth. Rather than eliminating workers, Gecko’s technology minimizes danger by removing them from the most precarious maintenance tasks,” Trae Stephens, partner at Founders Fund, said.

XN led the most recent funding round. Founders Fund, XYZ, Drive Capital, Snowpoint Ventures, Joe Lonsdale, Mark Cuban, Gokul Rajaram and more participated in the round.

“Gecko’s unique combination of robotics and software radically improves the ability to inspect, protect, and efficiently maintain critical infrastructure,” Tim Brown, partner at XN, said. “We are excited to partner with Jake and Troy as they extend Gecko’s powerful technology into new geographies and industries, helping customers collect and make sense of physical data to optimize the safety and performance of their assets.”

Gecko plans to use the funding to further its mission to “protect today’s critical infrastructure, and give form to tomorrow’s.” The company is headquartered in Pittsburgh and has offices in Houston, Austin, New York City, Boston and Europe.