Serve Robotics has deployed supply robots in Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, and Atlanta. | Supply: Serve Robotics
Serve Robotics Inc., a developer of sidewalk supply robots, this month mentioned it has agreed with traders to promote 6,250,000 shares of frequent inventory. The sale may herald as much as $100 million, earlier than deducting placement agent charges and different providing bills.
The Redwood Metropolis, Calif.-based firm mentioned it’ll use the proceeds of the providing for normal company functions, together with working capital.
Spun off from Uber in 2021, Serve Robotics mentioned it has accomplished tens of 1000’s of deliveries for enterprise companions corresponding to Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. The firm mentioned that it has scalable multi-year contracts, together with an settlement to deploy as much as 2,000 supply robots on the Uber Eats platform throughout a number of U.S. markets. To this point, Serve mentioned it has accomplished greater than 100,000 deliveries.
Earlier this month, the corporate mentioned it has deployed 1,000 robots, midway towards its aim of two,000 AI-powered techniques by yr’s finish.
Serve additionally introduced a multi-year strategic partnership with DoorDash to roll out cellular robots throughout the U.S. Already, Los Angeles residents ordering from taking part retailers by means of the DoorDash app might have their orders delivered by robots.
Whereas DoorDash is working with third-party builders corresponding to Serve Robotics, it’s also creating its personal supply robotic.
Serve expands know-how with acquisitions
In September, Serve acquired the belongings of Phantom Auto Inc. and its subsidiary, Voysys AB, a pioneer in ultra-low-latency video streaming, connectivity, and teleoperation know-how. Serve mentioned the acquisition enhances its know-how stack to assist its quickly rising fleet of autonomous supply robots.
It acquired the belongings for a money consideration of about $5.75 million. Serve Robotics was already a buyer of Voysys when Phantom Auto went bankrupt final yr, and it noticed a chance to buy Voysys earlier this yr.
Only a month earlier, the corporate acquired Vayu Robotics, which used large-scale AI fashions to deploy robots in city areas. Serve plans to mix its autonomy stack and actual‑world sidewalk dataset with Vayu’s experience in AI basis fashions and its scalable simulation-powered information engine.
Along with the acquisition, Silicon Valley technologist and Vayu’s lead investor, Vinod Khosla, will be part of Serve’s advisory board to assist its mission of bringing robots to cities the world over. Final month, Serve mentioned it was increasing its service to Chicago with Uber Eats.
Robots log tens of millions of deliveries
Starship Applied sciences has lengthy been a supply robotic chief. Earlier this yr, the firm introduced that its techniques had accomplished greater than 8 million autonomous deliveries and traversed over 10 million miles globally.
One other main competitor to Serve Robotics is Coco Robotics, which has accomplished over 500,000 zero-emission deliveries throughout main U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami. It additionally gives providers in Helsinki, its first European market.
As well as, Coco has partnerships with Uber and DoorDash. The corporate raised $80 million in June to scale its operations.
Different firms are specializing in extra particular use instances. For instance, Kiwibot has asserted that it’s a market chief of robotic deliveries on U.S. school campuses.
Since 2017, the Berkeley, Calif.-based supplier has deployed robots throughout the U.S., Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. It raised $10 million for deliveries as a service (DaaS) in December 2023.
