# Jake Loosararian

> Jake Loosararian is the Pittsburgh-based co-founder and CEO of Gecko Robotics, where wall-climbing robots and AI software turn hard-to-reach industrial surfaces into data. The company began as a Grove City College engineering project after Loosararian learned how dangerous and incomplete boiler inspections could be; it later expanded into energy, manufacturing, defense and other critical infrastructure, reaching a $1.25 billion valuation in 2025.

- **Role:** Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Gecko Robotics
- **Organizations:** Gecko Robotics, Grove City College, Y Combinator
- **Education:** Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Grove City College
- **Known for:** Turned a Grove City College electrical engineering project into Gecko Robotics, a company serving critical infrastructure operators., Led Gecko through Y Combinator's Winter 2016 batch after roughly three years of bootstrapping., Expanded Gecko from wall-climbing robotic inspection into an AI-supported operating platform built around industrial data and digital models.

## Career timeline

- **2011** — Co-founded the Team GCC Scholarship Endowment and joined a cross-country bicycle ride from Seattle to New York to support student aid and diversity at Grove City College.
- **2012** — Visited a Pennsylvania power plant and encountered the dangerous, incomplete process used to inspect boiler walls, prompting the idea for a climbing inspection robot.
- **2012-2013** — Developed the early wall-climbing robot with fellow Grove City electrical engineering students through the college's VentureLab program.
- **2013** — Graduated in electrical engineering and launched Gecko Robotics.
- **2013-2015** — Bootstrapped the company, invested his savings and tested early machines in industrial environments; by his account, he was eventually down to roughly $100 and sleeping on a friend's floor.
- **2016** — Gecko Robotics joined Y Combinator's Winter 2016 batch.
- **2017** — Found repeatable demand with power-generation customers and used field inspections to improve the hardware and operating model.
- **2022** — Gecko expanded its stated mission around critical infrastructure as its robots and software served energy, manufacturing and defense use cases.
- **2025** — Gecko announced a $125 million Series D at a $1.25 billion valuation, led by Cox Enterprises with participation from existing investors.
- **2026** — Loosararian continued making the case for physical-world AI, including public conversations about ground-truth industrial data and deploying AI beyond the cloud.

## Achievements

- Turned a Grove City College electrical engineering project into Gecko Robotics, a company serving critical infrastructure operators.
- Led Gecko through Y Combinator's Winter 2016 batch after roughly three years of bootstrapping.
- Expanded Gecko from wall-climbing robotic inspection into an AI-supported operating platform built around industrial data and digital models.
- Led Gecko to a $1.25 billion valuation in its June 2025 Series D round.
- Helped establish Pittsburgh as Gecko's headquarters and argued publicly for a durable local industrial-technology ecosystem.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — In a Pittsburgh Technology Council conversation, Loosararian described Gecko's approach as finding hard real-world problems, learning from the people who live with them and expanding the portion of the problem the company can solve.
- **2026-05** — Gecko highlighted expanding work across the built environment, including defense and industrial maintenance, as Loosararian continued to frame the mission around inspecting and maintaining physical assets.
- **2026-01** — At Axios House in Davos, Loosararian argued that the next direction of AI is into physical devices and real-world environments.
- **2026-01** — In a Fortt Knox interview, he discussed the importance of ground-truth data, Gecko's evolution from a hardware-first inspection business and his Armenian family history, faith and early founder years.
- **2025-07** — He warned that Pittsburgh's technology momentum would not sustain itself without founders, companies and capital compounding locally.
- **2025-06** — Gecko Robotics announced a $125 million Series D and a $1.25 billion valuation.

## Links

- Website: https://www.geckorobotics.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-loosararian-23981350/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/jakeloosy

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/jake-loosararian
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27