Vantora, formerly UP.Labs, raises $100M and sharpens focus on physical AI startups

UP.Labs is now doing business as Vantora and has raised a $100 million investment from Silversmith Capital Partners. The company began four years ago as a startup lab that was not quite an incubator, accelerator, or venture firm. Its core work remains building startups for corporate customers, including companies such as Alaska Airlines and Porsche.

The latest shift adds a sharper focus: Vantora is now building startups more directly for corporate customers rather than for the broader market. That change is especially important as the company leans into physical AI and industrial use cases.

Founder and CEO John Kuolt told TechCrunch that Vantora is moving toward a “proprietary M&A pipeline.” Under this model, corporate partners invest in the ventures and serve as their first customers. Those partners can also choose to fold the startups into their core businesses instead of sending the products into the open market.

The practical takeaway: Vantora is positioning itself less like a general startup factory and more like a builder of strategic businesses that corporate partners may want to own. That could make the resulting companies more tightly aligned with the operational needs of industrial customers.

Vantora’s focus on physical AI is tied to problems that corporate partners consider strategic and sensitive. Kuolt said the firm previously passed on ideas that had major upside because partners did not want those ideas sold to competitors. He described a Fortune 100 industrial company needing to retrofit hardware and machines for autonomy as an example of work that must remain “sovereign.”

Kuolt said this shift lets Vantora “unlock big physical AI use cases,” including with existing customers. He cited an AI idea connected to partner J.B. Hunt that the firm previously passed on because it could not be taken to the broader market.

Vantora launched in 2022 with Porsche as its first corporate partner and has since launched several startups for Porsche. It has also struck deals with Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash, and TDG, the parent of Ashley Furniture. The company is also working with new industrial manufacturing customers it declined to name, as well as customers in the oil and gas sector.

In its early days, UP.Labs was connected to venture firm Up.Partners, though not financially. Vantora still shares office space with the California-based VC, but Kuolt said it is its own entity and that the $100 million from Silversmith is its first outside investment.