Starship Raises $17 Million To Develop Driverless Delivery Robots

Starship has raised $17 million to keep working on autonomous deliveries, a post on Medium from the company says.

The company has also added two new service campuses, UCLA and Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.

With the new funding, Starship now boasts $102 million in funding to date.

The company also recently reached a milestone of 1 million autonomous deliveries.

“We were unsure where the 1 millionth delivery was going to take place, as there are around 15–20 service areas open globally all with robots doing deliveries every minute. In the end it took place at Bowling Green, Ohio, to a student called Annika Keeton who is a freshman studying pre-health Biology at BGSU. Annika is now part of Starship’s history!”

The company started six years ago and said while it wanted to hit the million mark sooner, it plans to continue ramping up deliveries.

The Medium post says UCLA is considered “one of the top public schools in the U.S.” There, Starship is delivering from restaurants like Blaze Pizza, Bruin Buzz, Lu Valle, and Southern Lights, and also delivering with Starbucks and BearsDen as BSU, the post says.

There’s more interest in the autonomous delivery industry these days, as the pandemic has made contactless deliveries and payments much more popular for fear of transmitting the virus otherwise. Starship says it’s seen demand increase five-fold since the pandemic began. The past year has also seen the company’s work expand to places like Arizona State, the University of Mississippi, UC Irvine and the city of Mountain View, California. The company also began working with The Save Mart Company in Modesto, the post says.

PYMNTS reported last year that Starship was debuting autonomous food delivery in Tempe, Arizona. The service comprised 30 robots working from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. every day in a geo-fenced area near Arizona State which included numerous popular eateries.