Vantora raises 100 million dollars to manufacture physical AI start-ups on order

The old UP.Labs abandons the open studio model: it only creates companies for an industrial partner, who finances them and uses them first.

Vantora, formerly UP. Labs, has completed a $100 million round of funding from Silversmith Capital Partners — its first external financing, announced on September 18, 2026. The studio claims a shift to what it describes as a proprietary M&A pipeline: each start-up is now built for an identified industrial partner, who becomes both the investor and the first customer, and can absorb it into its operations rather than having it address the market.

Porsche, a partner since 2022, has been joined by Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash and TDG, the parent company of Ashley Furniture, in addition to unnamed groups in industrial manufacturing and oil and gas. The studio is now focusing its efforts on physical AI, i.e. systems that act in the physical world rather than on a screen.

Founder and CEO John Kuolt defends this closed model because of its effect on sensitive projects: concepts that have been discarded until now become possible as long as they are not intended to be marketed beyond the partner. He cites an AI project developed for the carrier J.B. Hunt that he believes is impossible to offer to the rest of the market.