Bolt is teaming up with robotics company Starship Technologies to launch a robotic meal delivery service.
bolt
Estonian ride-hailing company Bolt said it will start delivering food to people’s doorsteps using fleets of self-driving robots through a partnership with robotics company Starship Technologies.
The company said it would start offering online food delivery later this year in its home city of Tallinn, debuting Starship’s robots, which are about the size of a suitcase.
“We are focused on providing comprehensive solutions to help local transportation be as sustainable as possible,” Bolt founder and CEO Markus Villig said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Starship offers a smart and beloved service that has proven itself over the past five years, and we’re excited to introduce it to more people.”
Bolt is one of Europe’s most valuable tech companies, valued at $8.4 billion, and has made a name for itself challenging Uber in the U.S. ride-hailing giant’s key international markets, particularly the U.K.
The company has since expanded into several other businesses, including online food and grocery delivery and electric scooters.
Founded in 2013 and formerly known as Taxify, Bolt has around 100 million customers in 45 countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
Bolt has raised more than $2 billion to date from investors including Sequoia Capital, World Bank subsidiary International Finance Corporation and the European Investment Bank.
how it will work
Just like ordering food online from an app in the typical fashion, Bolt’s Starship partnership will allow users to get food from the robot with the tap of a button.
Once the robot arrives at your door, you can press a button to turn it on and receive your meal or groceries.
Wednesday’s news marks a major milestone toward large-scale commercial deployment of the technology.
Bolt plans to start delivering the robot in Tallinn in the coming months, before rolling it out to more markets at a later point.
Starship, based in San Francisco and co-founded by some of Skype’s founders, already operates a fleet of autonomous delivery robots in the US
In the US, the service is mostly used by college students in partnership with food delivery company Grubhub.
The company has a similar deal with British grocer Co-op in the UK and other European countries.
Starship, which has raised about $200 million in funding to date, is one of many companies testing the use of robotics to deliver food and other goods.
In Asia, Chinese companies have seen this trend early. Back in 2019, major food delivery app Meituan was testing its robots in offices and hotels.
Some attempts to use fleets of robots for deliveries have suffered setbacks as widespread adoption of the technology has been limited.
For example, in the US, Amazon Completed field testing of Scouta delivery robot that delivers small packages to customers’ homes to keep costs down.
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