Vantora raises $100M to build proprietary physical AI startups for industrial corporations

Vantora, formerly UP.Labs, raised $100 million in its first outside funding round from Silversmith Capital Partners. The company was founded in 2022 and previously operated under the name UP.Labs, with a mission to build startups solving problems for corporate customers such as Alaska Airlines and Porsche. Vantora retains its focus on corporate-backed ventures but has narrowed its scope to exclusively build startups for its corporate partners, rather than the broader market.

The firm’s founder and CEO, John Kuolt, described this as a move toward a "proprietary M&A pipeline," where corporate partners invest in the ventures and can choose to integrate them into their core businesses. This shift has increased Vantora’s emphasis on physical AI, which Kuolt said enables the pursuit of high-value use cases previously deemed too sensitive for external commercialization.

Kuolt cited the example of a physical AI idea developed for J.B. Hunt, which the company initially passed on because it could not be sold externally. The proprietary model now allows Vantora to pursue such opportunities. He highlighted industrial retrofitting for autonomy as a key area, noting that Fortune 100 industrial companies require sovereign control over the intelligence layer to avoid sharing proprietary solutions with competitors.

Vantora’s corporate partners include Porsche, Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash, and TDG, the parent company of Ashley Furniture. The company continues to work with these partners, including new undisclosed customers in industrial manufacturing and oil and gas sectors. Vantora remains operationally separate from its former affiliate, venture firm Up.Partners, though it shares office space with the VC in California.