A&K Robotics has secured $8 million in Series A financing as it looks to scale what it describes as autonomous mobility infrastructure for airports, positioning its Cruz self-driving pods as a response to rising accessibility demands and operational pressure inside terminals. The Vancouver-based company said the round was led by BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and Vantage Futures, with additional backing from RiSC Capital, Grep VC, Nimbus Synergies, and entrepreneur Dan Gelbart.
Funding Round
According to the company, the new capital will be used to move beyond pilot projects and support larger permanent deployments across airport networks, while also increasing both research and manufacturing capacity. A&K said the financing comes as airports face increasing passenger volumes, tightening labor availability, and mounting pressure to meet accessibility requirements more efficiently. In that context, investors framed the company as part of a broader push to modernize transportation infrastructure through robotics and applied artificial intelligence.
Product and Market Position
A&K’s flagship product, Cruz, is a self-driving mobility robot designed to carry passengers through high-traffic indoor settings such as airport terminals, using onboard sensors and AI to navigate among pedestrians and arrive at selected destinations. The company says the system is designed for continuous operation and is aimed especially at passengers with reduced mobility, a group it argues is underserved as assistance requests rise faster than overall passenger growth. Earlier reporting around deployments at Vancouver International Airport described the pods as touchscreen-operated vehicles that rely on a 360-degree sensor array and multiple layers of redundancy to move safely through busy public environments.
Airport Deployments
The funding announcement builds on earlier airport activity that has already given A&K a public foothold in the aviation sector, including deployments or pilots involving Vancouver International Airport and Madrid-Barajas Airport. The company said Cruz is already operating in real-world airport environments in North America and Europe, and it identified Vancouver International Airport as one of its active partners while also citing Madrid-Barajas, which is operated by Aena. Separate reporting from 2025 said A&K and Aena had agreed to pilot five Cruz pods in Madrid, extending the company’s effort to prove that autonomous mobility can be integrated into some of the world’s busiest transport hubs.
Expansion Plans
To support the next phase of growth, A&K said it has expanded its research and development footprint with a rapid prototyping facility and is also establishing a third site in Surrey, British Columbia. The company said the Surrey expansion into Manterra Technologies’ 55,000-square-foot site is expected to increase production capacity from dozens of vehicles annually to hundreds, a notable shift for a company that until recently was known mainly for pilots and demonstrations. That manufacturing ramp-up suggests the business is preparing for procurement cycles that are longer and more infrastructure-oriented than those typically associated with early-stage robotics startups.
The announcement signals that A&K Robotics is trying to move from a promising airport robotics developer into a scaled infrastructure supplier serving a specialized but potentially global niche. Its argument is that autonomous mobility inside terminals can improve independence for travelers with mobility limitations while also helping airports manage staffing constraints, passenger throughput, and service consistency. Whether that vision translates into widespread adoption will depend less on the novelty of the pods themselves and more on the company’s ability to prove reliability, operational fit, and economic value at major airports over time.