It’s been a busy week of announcements for Tekcapital, with Friday bringing an update on portfolio company Guident, which has signed a 36-month agreement with Coastal Waste & Recycling.
It’s an extension of an existing deal that will see the rollout of autonomous inspection robots and AI monitoring software across the operator’s US sites.
Tekcapital says it marks Guident’s shift from pilot projects into long-term commercial contracts.
Coastal, a waste and recycling provider with more than 40 locations across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, will deploy Guident’s WatchBot autonomous inspection robots, its AI software platform and ongoing operational support under the expanded agreement.
The robots will carry out facility patrols and on-site inspections, while the software analyses the data, manages alerting and coordinates centralised workflows.
The system handles thermal inspections, early fire detection on loaded trucks, asset damage identification, PPE compliance monitoring and tank cage checks, alongside other site-specific safety routines.
“Safety is central to how we operate, and this three-year agreement reflects our long-term commitment to investing in technologies that protect our people and assets,” said Chad Abell, vice president, EHS & engineering at Coastal.
Harald Braun, executive chairman and chief executive of Guident, said pairing inspection robotics with the AI platform and operational support delivered a turn-key safety solution designed to reduce risk, improve inspection consistency and strengthen operational oversight.
“We are excited about Guident’s continued commercial progress,” said Dr. Clifford Gross, Executive Chairman of Tekcapital
“Their transition from pilot contracts to long-term commercial agreements is well underway, and we anticipate continued revenue growth across mobility, robotics and public transportation markets. Following their successful fundraising of US$2 million in May 2026, Guident continues to work diligently towards a public listing in 2026, which we believe has the potential to further crystallize balance sheet value and broaden participation in its scale-up.”
Long-term investors will note the reference to Guident potentially listing in 2026 after a long delay.
Innovative Eyewear rolls out AI news and Gemini features
In a separate announcement, Tekcapital flagged a batch of new features for the Lucyd app from fellow portfolio company Innovative Eyewear (NASDAQ: LUCY; LUCYW).
The headline addition is a Newscast widget that generates custom, AI-written news reports read aloud through the glasses.
The update also adds Google’s Gemini alongside the existing ChatGPT and Claude options, introduces multimodal AI chats that carry seamlessly between the app’s visual interface and the glasses’ audio interface, and lets Android users set Lucyd as their device-level voice assistant.
Tekcapital shares were 2% higher at the time of writing.