E-commerce delivery robot maker Starship Technologies plans to expand the production of its suitcase-sized, autonomous vehicles globally after receiving $90 million in new venture funding, the firm said last week.
The latest capital backing, co-led by Plural and Iconical, follows earlier investments such as a $40 million round in 2019 and brings the firm to a total of $230 million raised since its creation in 2014. Since that date, Starship says it has responded to “the unstoppable rise in demand for home deliveries” by providing its electric bots that can carry loads up to three bags of groceries in size down sidewalks at about four miles per hour, comparable to pedestrians’ walking speed.
Founded in Estonia and with headquarters in San Francisco, Starship says it has now become “the world’s leading autonomous delivery service,” based on a record of making more than six million deliveries in 80 locations across the world including the U.S., U.K., Germany, Denmark, Estonia, and Finland. The small robots typically make their deliveries to customers’ doorsteps carrying cargo such as take-out food, grocery orders, tools, and corporate documents.
“Autonomous delivery isn’t some science fiction concept from Bladerunner for decades in the future, it’s a reality for hundreds of thousands of people every day,” Ahti Heinla, Starship’s co-founder and CEO, said in a release. “Building a company like Starship takes at least a decade of perfecting the technology, streamlining operations and reducing costs to make last-mile autonomous delivery viable and sustainable at scale. Now we’re ready to take on the world and with ambitions to build a category-dominating company that can change the daily lives of millions of people in thousands of locations worldwide.”
