Vantora (formerly UP.Labs) today announced more than $100 million in growth investment from Silversmith Capital Partners. The investment marks the first time the profitable, founder-led company has raised outside capital and will support its next phase of growth, including expansion of corporate partnerships, continued development of its data ontology product, and hiring across AI and commercial roles.
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Sid Shah, President and John Kuolt, Founder & CEO, Vantora photo credit: Piper Ferguson
Vantora was founded in 2022 by John Kuolt, who spent years building corporate ventures at BCG X, to solve the innovator’s dilemma from inside the enterprise. Teams of seasoned founders and senior product and AI engineers embed inside a partner enterprise and, with the partner’s own operators and data, identify the problems carrying the most value to the core business, typically representing $50 to $100 million of annual EBITDA contribution. The resulting solution can include a new venture, proprietary capability, or other strategic assets.
Vantora terms the result Sovereign AI: the enterprise over time will own the company building and the intelligence layer of its own operations. The partner invests, is the first customer, and holds equity from formation. The partner shares in the upside as the venture scales and has the option to spin the venture into the core business once the results reach the P&L, so it can grow as part of their future DNA.
“The world’s largest enterprises are sitting on enormous value disguised as problems,” said John Kuolt, Founder and CEO of Vantora. “And there is a conundrum: there has never been a way to align the world’s best tech entrepreneurs with the massive problem sets of the world’s most important companies. Equity is what aligns them. We call it Sovereign AI: if the intelligence layer of your business is going to be built on your operations and your data, you must own it.”
Vantora builds AI-native ventures inside essential industries — energy, aviation, logistics, manufacturing, and automotive. Porsche AG was the launch partner when the company debuted as UP.Labs in 2022, and Vantora has since partnered with leading companies across these sectors, including Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash, and TDG, parent of Ashley Furniture. Its ventures range from automating product configuration and quoting for made-to-order manufacturing to rebuilding maintenance planning for airlines. Vantora has launched 17 ventures to date, is targeting 20 by the end of 2026, and has grown revenue 79% year over year.
According to Brad Delco, Chief Financial Officer of J.B. Hunt: “There’s no shortage of new ideas and emerging technologies competing for attention. What we value about our work with Vantora is their disciplined approach to testing opportunities against real business needs. That approach helps ensure we’re focused on solving the right problems for our customers while creating long-term value for our business.”
Vantora’s model addresses a gap that has become expensive for large enterprises – 94% of organizations still do not get a significant share of their earnings from AI, and that percentage has not moved in a year, according to McKinsey. Generic tools layered onto legacy systems rarely reach the operations where the value sits; enterprises increasingly need solutions built around their own workflows and domain expertise. Vantora’s work runs on COSMOS, a proprietary ontology product, which unifies an enterprise’s operating data and makes it usable by AI-driven processes and autonomous agents. The result replaces open-ended R&D investment with validated revenue and EBITDA impact, delivered faster and at lower risk.
“John and his team have demonstrated ROI and earned the trust of some of the world’s leading industrial enterprises,” said Danielle Waldman, Principal at Silversmith Capital Partners. “They were doing Physical AI before there was even a name for it. Very few organizations are commercializing solving real pain points, building ventures inside large partner enterprises, and giving the partner a path to own those ventures outright.”
As part of the investment, Todd MacLean, Danielle Waldman and Annie Cory of Silversmith Capital Partners will join Vantora’s Board of Directors.
Mintz served as legal counsel to Silversmith Capital Partners. Dorsey & Whitney served as legal counsel to Vantora.
About Vantora
Vantora makes enterprise problems valuable. The company partners with global industrial enterprises to identify the most consequential problems inside their businesses, then builds the companies, capabilities and strategic assets that solve them — with the enterprise as anchor customer and owner. Vantora combines entrepreneurial talent, proprietary technology, data and domain expertise to create measurable new value. Formerly known as UP.Labs, Vantora’s work spans energy, manufacturing, aviation, transportation, automotive, retail, and other critical industries. Learn more at vantora.us
About Silversmith Capital Partners
Founded in 2015, Silversmith Capital Partners is a Boston-based growth equity firm with over $5 billion in capital under management. Silversmith seeks to partner with founders and entrepreneurs building enduring technology and healthcare businesses. The firm brings deep domain expertise, strategic perspective, and a long-term partnership approach to help management teams accelerate growth. The firm has served as the first institutional partner to some of the most dynamic and successful companies in its core verticals, including Appfire, Apryse, DistroKid, Iodine Software, and LifeStance Health. For more information, visit www.silversmith.com.
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