Cavalla, a rising startup in San Francisco, unveils its first product Cavalier, the first on-site retrofitting kit available to customers in northern California.
Cavalier is the world’s first on-site retrofitting kit designed to make existing forklifts in a warehouse autonomous. This method reduces the installation time to only a few hours and slashes the upfront cost needed to adopt autonomy by warehouse operators.
Cavalla was started in the fall of 2023 with the mission to allow warehouses of all sizes to match automation capabilities that have been exclusive to multibillion-dollar fulfillment companies like Amazon. “We have seen a growing divergence in autonomy capabilities between multibillion-dollar warehouses and the mid-market,” said Mohammad Nafisi, CEO and co-founder of Cavalla. “It’s clear that autonomy solutions requiring massive upfront costs will remain a luxury exclusive to the big players. Our mission is to make autonomy adoption a no-brainer for the rest of the market.”
The company began with humble beginnings by Mohammad Nafisi and Victor Boyd in a hackerspace in San Francisco. Mohammad and Victor bring a full-stack background in robotics, robot deployment, and growth engineering for industrial customers, uniquely positioning Cavalla for success.
The launch of Cavalier represents a groundbreaking shift in warehouse automation, making adoption of autonomy almost as easy as installing a piece of software. “Cavalier is designed to retrofit a wide range of forklift models, and we’ve engineered it to be installed in record time,” said Victor Boyd, Cavalla’s CTO. “Our team has dedicated countless hours to developing a modular kit that simplifies the installation process to just a few hours, ensuring minimal disruption to warehouse operations. This modularity also allows us to adapt quickly to different forklift configurations, enabling us to build a truly universal solution for warehouse autonomy.”
Looking ahead, Cavalla sees Cavalier as a crucial step in the evolution of warehouse digitization. The solution bridges a gap in the digitization process, connecting advanced tools like digital twins to the reality of daily operations. By retrofitting forklifts with autonomous capabilities and barcode scanning, Cavalier ensures that digital models remain grounded in real-time data, enabling warehouses to align their virtual plans with on-the-ground execution. This integration lays the foundation for future advancements, allowing operators to continuously refine workflows, improve decision-making, and fully embrace the benefits of digital transformation.
Cavalla is backed by visionary investors like Founders Inc., Jude Gomila, Remi Cadene, and other angel investors. With this pre-seed round, they are targeting serving initial customers and prove the reliability of their system to create the world’s first on-site autonomy add-on compatible with every electric forklift. If you are interested in trying this technology, click here.