Vinay V and Saad Nasser, two of the three co-founders of Ati Motors, a startup that built the country’s first autonomous cargo vehicle, have resigned.
They have both resigned from their posts as Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Technology Officer.
Nasser, a child prodigy, is the winner of the Intel IRIS award. He co-founded Ati when he was 14.
Vinay cited “differences with management about the advancement of technology in the organisation” as the reason for his departure.
Vinay is an adjunct faculty member at the Chennai Mathematical Institute and is a CV Raman Award winner who taught computer science at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore for a decade.
“I can confirm that myself and Saad have quit the company…We’ve had a great period of five years developing cutting-edge tech. But we had fundamental differences over what is required, going forward I’m sure Ati has a bright future,” he said.
Ati creates self-driving industrial vehicles that can be used in fully operational warehouses and factories.
It has raised about $5 million in equity funds, with Blume, Exfinity Venture Partners, and MFV Partners providing venture capital.
Ati made a commercial deployment for Flipkart in August 2021, according to its website.
Its Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) have also found application in the shop floors of car manufacturers. Hyundai has begun deploying Ati’s tugs and other robots for material movement at its factory in India.
One of the few Indian companies into commercial deployment of R&D concepts in robotics, Ati has drawn several industry veterans. Its top executives for engineering, autonomy and software earlier had stints in technical positions at top multinationals such as Google, Amazon, Cisco and Intel.
