Outrider
Canvas Category Machinery : Field Robot : Yard
Outrider, the pioneer in autonomous yard operations for logistics hubs, helps large enterprises improve safety and increase efficiency. The only company exclusively focused on automating all aspects of yard operations, Outrider eliminates manual tasks that are hazardous and repetitive. Outrider’s mission is to drive the rapid adoption of sustainable freight transportation by deploying zero-emission systems. Outrider is a private company backed by NEA, 8VC, Koch Disruptive Technologies, and other top-tier investors.
Assembly Line
Outrider Closes $62 Million Series D Financing to Drive Growth of Yard Automation
Outrider, the leader in autonomous yard operations for logistics hubs, has raised $62 million in an oversubscribed Series D financing round. The round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with additional investments from 8VC, ARK Invest, B37 Ventures, FM Capital, Interwoven Ventures, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), and Prologis Ventures. This funding will drive the commercial scaling of Outrider’s autonomous yard operations as a service with Fortune 500 customers in 2025 and solidify its position at the forefront of logistics automation.
With over $250 million in equity capital raised to date, Outrider is working closely with customers to launch and scale autonomous yard operations as a service across industries such as package shipping, retail and eCommerce, consumer packaged goods, and automotive. Since 2019, Outrider’s customers, representing over 20 percent of all yard trucks in operation in North America, have been actively involved in product testing and pilot deployments, highlighting their commitment to reinventing yard operations.
Behind the scenes as Outrider perfects the autonomous distribution yard
Self-Driving Vehicles Are Finding a Home in Industrial Operations
Kimberly-Clark credits hundreds of autonomous forklifts with helping the consumer-products company keep Kleenex facial tissue, Cottonelle toilet paper and other goods flowing to stores despite labor shortages during the Covid pandemic. Sharpie maker Newell Brands says the vehicles are helping deliver safety improvements and cost savings across the company’s operations.
Kimberly-Clark has more than 300 autonomous forklifts at its North American warehouses, up from about 30 in 2019, said Sarah Haffer, vice president of customer logistics for the company’s North America consumer division. Haffer said Kimberly-Clark’s warehouses with autonomous forklifts have provided some of the most consistent service levels to its retail customers. “We have been able to manage through Covid with real stability and beyond in terms of throughput and capabilities,” Haffer said.
Newell Brands, whose products also include Coleman outdoor recreation equipment and Rubbermaid food storage goods, uses more than 200 autonomous forklifts across its facilities. Newell Chief Executive Chris Peterson said robotic vehicles have reduced incidents of damage to goods and are delivering “significant cost savings.”
Outrider releases latest AI-driven perception technology to accelerate yard automation
Outrider’s latest perception technology identifies specific characteristics of yard actors, such as orientation, position, and velocity, anticipates their trajectories, and responds to their actions using predictable, human-like behaviors. Data collection from a wide variety of distribution yards feeds Outrider’s proprietary deep-learning models, which create the neural networks for the autonomous system to automate yard tasks with increasing intelligence and precision.
To enable the latest perception capabilities, Outrider updated its multi-modal sensor platform on each autonomous yard truck with over 3x the range and 10x the sensor data to achieve critical safety and performance objectives for scaled driverless operations.
Outrider raises $73 million Series C financing to accelerate the adoption of autonomous distribution yard operations
Outrider, the pioneer in autonomous yard operations for logistics hubs, today announced it closed $73 million in Series C financing led by FM Capital. New investors include a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm. Existing investors participating in the round include Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Outrider has raised $191 million in financing to date based on its technical leadership in autonomous systems for distribution yards.
Outrider will use this funding to expand its proprietary autonomy and safety technology portfolio, increase hiring domestically and internationally, and scale its yard automation solution with large customers in package shipping, retail, eCommerce, consumer packaged goods, grocery, manufacturing, and intermodal industries. Outrider’s customers, representing more than 20% of all yard trucks operating in N. America, have invested in joint product testing and pilot operations since 2019.