Kargo

Kargo Inc. is a San Francisco-based industrial artificial intelligence company for supply chain and logistics that automates shipping and receiving workflows at warehouse loading docks. Its system combines physical hardware — towers roughly 11 feet tall and lifts installed at dock doors and gateways, equipped with computer-vision sensors — with a software platform. As forklifts load and unload trucks, the sensors capture freight labels, cases and product condition, including barcodes and QR codes, safety labels, lot numbers and cargo dimensions, removing the need for manual scanning or change management.

The platform inspects arriving freight for damage, verifies shipments against bills of lading, and pushes inventory data into customer systems such as ERP, WMS, TMS and YMS for real-time visibility and compliance. Large language models are used to flag issues and exceptions and document them with visual evidence to support freight and damage claims resolution. Kargo also consolidates appointment scheduling, driver check-in and dock door allocation into a single workflow that adapts to conditions such as inclement weather, and issues recommendations on labor allocation as well as overages, shortages and damages. Following its December 2025 Series B, the company is rolling out Kargo Intelligence, an agentic-AI application built on its freight data layer that automates back-office workflows including invoicing, claims disputes, financial reconciliation and customer service.

Founding story

Kargo was founded in 2019 by Sam Lurye, who set out to create a connective layer between the physical realities and the digital expectations of logistics. Before founding Kargo, Lurye was a researcher at the Neural Prosthetic Systems Lab at Stanford University, where he worked on brain-computer interfaces.

Business model

Kargo deploys sensor-equipped hardware (towers and lifts) at customer loading docks and gateways, connected to its software platform, and sells into large enterprise supply chain and logistics operations. Management describes expansion within existing accounts, with additional orders typically placed by the same customers within about three months as facilities extend deployments upstream and downstream in their supply chains.

Traction

Kargo reported tripling annual revenue from 2024 to 2025 and growing from three enterprise customers at the time of its 2022 Series A to more than 45, including more than 45 Fortune 500 companies per one account. More than 1,000 towers have been deployed in the United States. As of May 2025, the company said it processed $200 million in inventory and roughly 20,000 pallets per day on average, with 2 million automated scans weekly.

Latest developments

In December 2025 Kargo closed a $42 million Series B led by Avenir Growth, with participation from Linse Capital, Hearst Ventures, Lightbank and existing investors Matter Venture Partners and Sozo Ventures. Proceeds are earmarked for scaling deployments, strengthening real-time inventory data infrastructure and launching Kargo Intelligence, a platform automating back-office workflows such as invoicing, claims disputes, financial reconciliation and customer service using visual data from its dock towers.