Autonomous robot delivery company Starship Technologies has raised a further $90 million for technological development and to expand its operations to new markets.
The funding, co-led by investors Plural and Iconical, brings the total raised by the Estonian-founded and US-based company to $230 million since its creation in 2014. In 2022, the company received €50 million from an EU bank.
6m deliveries
The new investment round will enable Starship to use continuing advances in AI and machine learning to further develop its AI, tech and wireless charging infrastructure, as it expands to more markets internationally – particularly with its Delivery as a Service (DaaS) product, which sees Starship robots integrate into the delivery infrastructure of its partners.
Starship’s delivery robots have so far made more than six million deliveries in 80 locations across six countries: the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Estonia and Finland. Key customers, mostly from the food and groceries sectors, include Bolt, Co-Op, Grubhub and Sodexo.
Last year, the company launched food deliveries for Co-op in Manchester, UK, and grocery deliveries for Finnish supermarket group S-kaupat.
Sustainable deliveries?
The company claims to have created “the most cost-effective, ethical and sustainable way to deliver goods directly to a customer over a short distance, solving the last-mile delivery industry’s major challenges”.
Starship explained that each robot can run for 18 hours fully charged, and the average delivery takes only the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle for a single cup of tea. Since launch, Starship robots have reduced almost 1.8M kg of carbon dioxide.
As well, by using robots “rather than humans on low wages riding through traffic”, it has pioneered a more ethical, sustainable business that is used by customers.
Wireless charging
In terms of its technological development, Starship stressed that it has been able to make autonomous delivery a commercial reality by perfecting its technology over the past 10 years. The robots are 99% autonomous and can react safely to difficult situations and obstacles, including snow, rocky terrain and blockages en route.
Recently, Starship introduced groundbreaking wireless charging for its robots at George Mason University in the US. In a world’s first, Starship robots can now recharge autonomously and wirelessly in between deliveries. Starship plans to roll out its wireless charging solution globally in the months to come, adding further efficiencies to the last-mile delivery process and fulfilling the vision of creating a fully autonomous system that can easily be deployed at scale.
Ready for expansion
Ahti Heinla, co-founder and CEO at Starship Technologies, said: “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. 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.”
Global leader
From the investors, Taavet Hinrikus, Partner at Plural, said: “Starship is the global leader in autonomous technology, built in Europe. For the past 10 years, the team have 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.”
