Logistics Startup Destro Emerges From Stealth With $8 Million to Coordinate Robots and Humans

On Tuesday, the startup Destro emerged from stealth with an $8 million seed round led by Base10 Partners and Bonfire Ventures, with additional backing from CoFound Partners. Founded by Manthan Pawar, the company focuses on logistics software rather than manufacturing hardware, utilizing an artificial intelligence intelligence layer to coordinate both robotic systems and human workers.

Destro’s platform runs on open-weight vision-language-action models through its Vision operating system and coordinates tasks via a Mothership operating system. The startup collaborated with Richard Brunelle, director of automation for the American logistics group at Yusen Logistics, to adapt its technology for cross-dock environments. A pilot program in the Pacific Northwest employed three cart-moving robots built by Miva Robotics to manage cart transport while human workers unloaded goods.

Following the initial test, Destro is expanding the pilot into a full deployment of 26 robots and initiating a second pilot with 17 robots at a Yusen facility in Southern California. Pawar intends to replicate this cross-dock loading workflow across thousands of warehouses, aiming for the startup to become cash flow positive by the end of the year.