A&K Robotics, a Canadian company building autonomous mobility infrastructure for airports, has closed a CAD $8 million Series A investment. The round was led by BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and Vantage Futures, the corporate venture arm of Vantage Group, a global airport and transportation infrastructure operator. Additional investors include RiSC Capital, Grep VC, Nimbus Synergies, and Dan Gelbart, co-founder of Creo and Kardium.
The funding will support A&K’s transition from pilot programs to permanent deployments, the expansion of production capacity, and the acceleration of adoption across major airport networks globally.
The Problem and the Product
Roughly 17% of the global population lives with mobility challenges, and requests for airport assistance are growing 10-15% annually – a rate that consistently outpaces overall passenger growth. Airports face a structural gap between rising accessibility demand and the labor available to address it.
A&K’s response is Cruz, a self-driving mobility pod purpose-built for dense indoor environments. Passengers select a destination and the vehicle navigates autonomously using onboard sensors and AI, dynamically adjusting its path to move safely through crowds. The system is designed for continuous operation, enabling airports to deliver consistent accessible mobility without scaling headcount proportionally.
Cruz is powered by the company’s Kinesos AI platform, which A&K describes as a system for socially intelligent autonomy – enabling vehicles to move naturally through dynamic, unpredictable human environments rather than following fixed routes or requiring controlled corridors.
Current Deployments
Cruz is already operating in live airport environments. Deployed customers include Vancouver International Airport, ranked Best Airport in North America 15 times by aviation research firm Skytrax, and Madrid-Barajas Airport, operated by Aena – the world’s largest airport operator by passenger volume, serving more than 380 million travelers annually. The combination of a North American and a major European reference deployment gives A&K a geographic footprint that supports broader enterprise sales conversations.
“While others focus on roads, we’re tackling the harder problem – navigating dense, unpredictable airport crowds,” said Jessica Yip, COO of A&K Robotics. “Autonomous mobility is already standard in warehouses. We are bringing it into the most complex indoor environments.”
Expanding Manufacturing Capacity
The Series A will fund the establishment of a third facility in Surrey, British Columbia, expanding into a 55,000 square-foot site at Manterra Technologies. The move is expected to increase manufacturing output from dozens to hundreds of autonomous vehicles per year. A new rapid prototyping and R&D facility has also been established to accelerate iteration on deployment-ready systems.
The manufacturing expansion reflects a deliberate shift in focus from technology validation to production scale. Airport operators evaluating permanent deployments require supply chain certainty that pilot-stage companies cannot always provide – the new facility is designed to address that constraint directly.
“Their ability to deploy in dense, high-traffic airport environments positions them as a key partner for operators looking to improve operational efficiency, enhance passenger experience, and scale autonomous mobility across global networks,” said Matthew Handford, Executive Managing Director at Vantage Futures.
