Vantora’s $100M Bet on Private Physical AI

Vantora now has a clear path: build startups for partners, not for the open market. The company began in 2022 as UP.Labs, a startup workshop that did not fit the usual boxes. It created companies for clients like Porsche and Alaska Airlines, and it also aimed at problems beyond one customer.

The mission has not vanished. The name has changed, and the money has grown. Silversmith Capital Partners put $100 million into Vantora. That is the first investment from outside the company. Vantora is also taking on new work with unnamed industrial manufacturers and oil and gas firms.

Founder and CEO John Kuolt says the bigger change is control. Vantora will still create startups for business partners. Those partners will fund them and become their first buyers. But the partners can also move the startups inside their own companies and keep the work away from rivals. Kuolt describes this as a private acquisition path, where valuable startup ideas do not have to leave the company that needs them.

This matters most for physical AI. Years ago, Vantora often dropped ideas that were too strategic for a partner but too sensitive to sell elsewhere. Kuolt said that meant the firm missed some of the most important problems and the biggest upside. A large industrial company may need its machines and equipment to run with more autonomy. It may want the core smart systems to stay under its own control, not in the hands of a third party that could serve competitors.

The new model lets Vantora pursue projects that were once too risky to share. With J.B. Hunt, for example, it built an AI idea meant to move the business forward. The partner said the idea could not go to the wider market, so Vantora passed on it at the time. Under the private model, that kind of work can now move ahead. Vantora launched with Porsche as its first corporate partner, has created several Porsche startups, and has made deals with Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash, and TDG, the parent of Ashley Furniture. In its early days, UP.Labs was linked to Up.Partners, but never financially. It still shares office space with the California venture firm, yet Kuolt says Vantora is its own entity.