Friday 28 January 2022

Starship Tech takes delivery of €50m funding to expand autonomous robots fleet

Starship Technologies has secured €50 million (£41.7m) of funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to expand its fleet of electric autonomous delivery robots.

The company already offers its last-mile delivery services in cities, university campuses and industrial campuses across parts of the EU, UK and the US, completing deliveries 100% autonomously, including road crossings.

Its zero-emission robots, designed to deliver food, groceries and packages, make more than 100,000 road crossings every day and have completed more than 2.5 million commercial deliveries.

Alastair Westgarth, CEO, Starship Technologies said: “We’re proud of our European roots as well as the growing team there that remains a vital part of our operations. As the market leader in autonomous delivery we are constantly looking to innovate and find new ways to improve our service.

“This backing from the EIB will help enable us to continue to reshape last-mile delivery and bring the benefits of on demand delivery and convenience to millions more people. The additional engineering resources that we will hire in Europe will be another key component in making this possible.”

According to Startship, the cost of its deliveries are now lower than the human equivalent and believes to be a “world-first” for any robot delivery company, as most others are still majority controlled by humans and in pilot mode.

EIB Vice President Thomas Östros added: “Electric vehicles in all shapes and sizes will be part of our future and can be a key part in the sustainable transport puzzle.

“Starship’s delivery robots are already proving their worth and we are glad to support the company so that they can continue to develop their technology and scale-up their production.”