Physical AI companies are about to learn an old infrastructure lesson: A customer contract can be or unlock a form of capital. Gatik just announced a $200 million raise, but the more important numbers are the ones sitting behind the round: more than $600 million in contracted revenue, 85,000 fully driverless orders completed and 99% on-time delivery, all reported by the company. The contract details are not public and neither are recognized revenue, margins or capital required per deployed lane, all of which matter. However, investors across both equity and debt can look at backlog in two buckets (i) high-quality demand or (i) a potentially expensive promise. Nonetheless, I think this is still a useful signal/lesson for Physical AI founders. First, contracts can de-risk demand before a company scales the fleet. A signed route or workflow is more financeable than a general claim that a machine has a large market. Second, operating proof can separate technology capital from asset capital. Equity will fund building out autonomy, safety and the next product. Once the deployed unit is predictable, equipment finance or other lower-cost capital can fund more trucks or robots. Third, contracts force repeatability. A customer buying reliable throughput cares about on-time delivery, interventions, uptime and cost per order. After things are live in the field, your ability to perform is whats up for the test. Lower cost debt capital is a fundamental need for the current Physical AI valuations to fundamentally work longer-term if you are handling hardware. Therefore, being extremely intentional during contracting is critical. The top 5 things that would be on my mind as a Founder are: 1. Duration of contract 2. Cancellation rights 3. Minimum volume 4. Your own deployment capex and payment terms with suppliers 5. Your expected gross profit and what levers you need to believe in for it to be X vs. Y If you can pull forward customer payments to finance the business that's even better. But if you can't, making sure your contracts and ability to back it up are airtight is key.