NuPort Robotics quietly charts its own course in autonomous trucking

Source Domain: www.trucknews.com

Some autonomous trucking developers have built their reputations through high-profile announcements and headline-grabbing milestones. NuPort Robotics has taken a quieter approach.

The Markham, Ont.-based startup has spent the past six years steadily building its autonomy platform, signing commercial customers and expanding into industries ranging from retail distribution and forestry to mining and ports. While it has largely stayed out of the spotlight, CEO and co-founder Raghavender Sahdev believes the company’s measured approach is beginning to pay off.

A NuPort Robotics retrofit is relatively clean and simple. (Photo: James Menzies)

Today, the company’s most high-profile customer is Canadian Tire, but it is also working with research body FPInnovations, major forestry companies, mining operators, ports and one of North America’s largest logistics providers. The company has also quietly reached a milestone that Sahdev says reflects its deliberate approach to growth: cumulative revenue has surpassed the amount of capital NuPort has raised.

“We’ve been generating revenue for the past few years, and the amount of revenue we have generated is more than the capital we have raised to date,” Sahdev told trucknews.com during an in-depth interview at Canadian Tire’s distribution center in Bolton, Ont. on July 15, where two of its trucks are stationed and actively working.

While Sahdev didn’t disclose financial figures, the claim stands out in an emerging technology sector where commercial adoption often takes years to materialize, and some upstart providers haven’t survived long enough to achieve revenue generation.

Founded in 2019 by Sahdev and chief technology officer Bao Xin Chen, NuPort was the first autonomous trucking company established in Canada.

Sahdev, whose background spans nearly two decades in robotics and artificial intelligence, said the company’s philosophy has always been to commercialize…

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