Starship raises $90M for outdoor delivery robots

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Starship’s delivery robots travel 4 MPH to deliver goods over short distances. | Source: Starship Technologies

Starship Technologies raised $90 million in funding for its delivery robots. With this latest round, Starship Technologies has raised a total of $287.7 million since it started in 2014, per Crunchbase.

Starship said it plans to use the funding to expand globally as it desires to take advantage of the rise in demand for home deliveries. The company is already making deliveries in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Denmark, Estonia, and Finland, among others. It said it has completed more than six million deliveries across 80 locations.

Starship’s delivery robots can transport meals, grocery orders, tools, and corporate documents to customers’ doorsteps. They can run for 18 hours on a full charge, and the average delivery takes the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle for a single cup of tea.

Starship has ramped up deliveries in recent years

It took Starship Technologies six years to complete its first one million deliveries, but it took just three years to complete the next five million deliveries. As it has ramped up operations, the company has also been improving its technology.

The company said its robots are now 99% autonomous and can react safely to difficult situations and obstacles, including snow, rocky terrain, and blockages en route. Starship said its robots make three road crossings every second, which can be a challenge for delivery robots.

Starship also recently introduced wireless charging for its robots at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Robots at the university can now recharge autonomously and wirelessly between deliveries. Starship said it plans to roll out this feature globally in the months to come.

“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,” said Ahti Heinla, co-founder and CEO at Starship Technologies. “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.”

There are a number of other companies that have developed and deployed outdoor delivery robots. Some of those companies include Cartken, Ottonomy, and Serve Robotics, to name a few.

Starship’s plans for growth

Plural, an early-stage investment fund launched in 2022, and Iconical, an investment fund that specializes in breakthrough technology startups and ideas, led the latest investment round.

“Starship is the global leader in autonomous technology, built in Europe,” Taavet Hinrikus, a partner at Plural, said in a release. “For the past 10 years, the team [has] been working tirelessly to build the most advanced autonomous logistics technology in the world, driving more miles and making more deliveries than any other company, whilst reducing the impact of last-mile and on-demand delivery on the planet. The culmination of this hard work over the past decade and this new funding means Starship is well-positioned for accelerated growth. We’re looking forward to supporting Ahti and the team on this journey to becoming one of Europe’s most successful global companies.”