• Gatik, an autonomous truck developer for middle-mile delivery, has entered into a multi-year commercial partnership with the pulp and paper company Georgia Pacific and KBX, the transportation arm of Koch Industries, to deliver Georgia-Pacific’s paper goods to selected Sam’s Club stores in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

• Deliveries are expected to commence next month. Gatik aims to deploy three trucks to deliver goods 24/7 across a network of 34 Sam’s Club stores in the area, each traveling up to 100 miles a day.

• The companies intend to expand the service nationwide to deliver goods to more locations in the future.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: The news comes a little less than a year since Gatik raised USD 85 million in Series B funding led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, the investment arm of Koch Industries, and announced plans to expand operations to Texas. The company also opened a new autonomous trucking facility in Dallas-Fort Worth for the purpose. Today’s news marks the first major partnership in Texas, even though the company has been hauling goods for several unnamed customers in Texas since mid-2021.</ul>