Gecko Robotics

Alumni Q&A

How did your company get started? (i.e., How did the founders meet? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to be a founder?)

The two founders, Troy and Jake, met at Grove City College near Pittsburgh, where they lived in the same dorm and played sports together. After Jake initially bootstrapped Gecko on his own, the two reconnected around a shared goal of building a robotics company for the built world.

How did you decide to apply to Y Combinator? What was your experience applying, going through the batch, and fundraising at demo day?

Jake was not aware of YC before applying. In fall 2016, the founders met Kevin Hale during a Pittsburgh recruiting visit and discussed how Gecko could scale; the company was generating revenue but not yet focused on fundraising or building a scalable business. They applied shortly after, and during the batch they turned down an acquisition offer to continue building the company.

How have you kept in touch with the YC community and continued to use YC resources & programs since the batch ended?

The founders have stayed connected mainly through Kevin Hale, Jared Friedman, Sam Altman, and Jon Levy.

What's the history of your company from getting started until the present day? What were the big inflection points?

Jake built a wall-climbing ultrasonic testing robot in 2012, and the company began generating revenue soon after without a clear path to scale. Going through YC and later declining acquisition offers and investments just before demo day were key turning points; the company now works with large energy providers as well as the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.

What is the core problem you are solving? Why is this a big problem? What made you decide to work on it?

The founders are addressing the failure and downtime of aging physical infrastructure such as power plants, which operators had treated as an unavoidable cost. Jake identified the problem during a college visit to a power plant, and the founders committed the company to using robotics to inspect and maintain critical physical assets.