Uber-backed Serve Robotics raises $13M to expand sidewalk robot deliveries
Autonomous sidewalk delivery company Serve Robotics has raised $13 million in funding. It will use the money to accelerate its plans to expand into new customer segments and geographic areas, which will require building more sidewalk robots to fuel this growth.
Serve Robotics was founded in 2017 as the robotics unit of Postmates. In February 2021, it became an independent company. Postmates is now owned by Uber, which made the acquisition to strengthen its own delivery service, Uber Eats.
In November, Serve announced a deal with Uber to deliver food in Los Angeles. Serve's robots will begin deliveries in early 2022. Uber is Serve's first commercial partner.
Serve's sidewalk robots can carry up to 23 kg of cargo for distances of up to 40 km without recharging. Items in the cargo compartment are locked and unlocked via a phone app or a passcode.
"Our goal is to place robots in every major city in the US within the next two to three years," said Serve co-founder and CEO Ali Kashani in a comment to TechCrunch.
Uber participated in the funding as a strategic investor, alongside DX Ventures, backed by Delivery Hero, the corporate venture arm of 7-Eleven (7-Ventures), and the venture studio Wavemaker Partners, which specializes in food automation through Wavemaker Labs.
Serve has delivered to Postmates customers in several neighborhoods of Los Angeles since 2018, when the startup was still Postmates X, the robotics unit of the delivery platform. According to the company, it launched commercial service in 2020, and its robots completed tens of thousands of contactless deliveries from more than 100 merchants in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In November 2021, Serve said it would offer Uber Eats customers in Los Angeles on-demand robot delivery in early 2022.
“We are going beyond Uber Eats and Postmates customers, and next year we plan to increase the number of neighborhoods we serve in Los Angeles and also expand into new cities. 7-Eleven and Delivery Hero have now invested in the company, so I hope we will share more about any collaboration that develops. There are a number of other partners we are negotiating with right now”
The 24-hour convenience store giant 7-Eleven is no stranger to autonomous delivery. Recently, the company together with Nuro launched a small pilot program of commercial deliveries using autonomous vehicles.
The operator of 7-Eleven stores in Korea has also begun testing sidewalk delivery robots developed by local startup Neubility, and in 2016 7-Eleven tested autonomous delivery in Reno, Nevada, with drone maker Flirtey. Delivery Hero has also experimented with sidewalk robots in the past, using Starship Technologies in 2018 to serve customers of the food delivery company Foodora.
“Serve Robotics has delivered with self-driving vehicles in major US cities and leads the robotics field with its advanced autonomous technology. This revolutionary technology can change the future of delivery, and we are investing in Ali's vision and the world-class team he has assembled”
Kashani said that, in addition to closing the funding round, Serve has some upcoming news about autonomy advances, but did not go into details.
While some companies, such as competitor Coco, which recently signed an agreement with Segway to use the manufacturer's robotics platform for its future vehicles, often stress the importance of having a human in the loop for autonomy, Serve aims to remove remote operators from the equation as much as possible.
“Our robots can operate independently in autonomous mode most of the time. This has very important implications for the safety and economics of our operations, and is one of the reasons we can commercially operate our fleet”
He said that if you have people, the economics simply won't work, even if remote operators are offshore. However, he acknowledged that relying on people alone makes no sense if it is a one-to-one relationship, for example, when one person controls one robot at a time. As with Coco, the question for Serve comes down to this: how can we improve our autonomy to the point where one person can supervise several robots on the street at the same time?
“Robots must have built-in capabilities to keep themselves safe when the network goes down or when someone is about to make a mistake. We want people to watch over robots when they cross the street, simply because from a safety standpoint they interact with cars. Sometimes people take over if a robot cannot figure it out, sometimes not. Usually the robot tries to sort out the situation on its own, and then, if that fails, a person can step in, but partly this is because it takes time. You do not want to wait if you have a timeline”
Sidewalk delivery is only beginning to gain momentum as an industry, so companies are racing to offer the most sophisticated technology and the best go-to-market strategy. Thanks to this funding round and the partners accompanying it, Serve is already preparing to expand.
“7-Eleven represents everyday-needs stores we could work with, and Delivery Hero gives you a view of delivery platforms we could work with. We are certainly going to work with restaurant chains, and over time industries such as medical supply delivery, pharmacies, alcohol and cannabis will emerge. So, as you would expect, we will pursue partnerships”
