In context
In September 2023, autonomous delivery was gaining traction as companies sought sustainable and efficient last-mile solutions. Starship Technologies had just reached a major milestone of 5 million commercial deliveries, highlighting growing demand for robot delivery services.
What was reported
Starship Technologies, a provider of autonomous delivery services, announced a commercial partnership with Bolt, a European mobility super-app. The collaboration aims to deploy thousands of Starship robots for Bolt Food deliveries across multiple countries, starting in 2023.
Starship had recently become the first company to complete 5 million autonomous commercial deliveries, a milestone achieved just seven months after reaching 4 million in November 2022. The company's fleet of over 2,000 robots operates at Level 4 autonomy and completes 140,000 road crossings daily.
Bolt, with over 100 million customers in more than 45 countries, offers ride-hailing, micromobility, food and grocery delivery, and car-sharing. The partnership will enable Bolt to offer multi-modal delivery options based on basket size and distance, potentially increasing profitability per delivery.
“We’re excited to bring our two services together through this new collaboration, which will provide millions of Bolt Food customers with a new, sustainable delivery option fulfilled by Starship’s smart and much-loved service.” — Jevgeni Kabanov, Bolt’s president
Why it mattered
This partnership signaled a shift toward integrating autonomous delivery robots into mainstream mobility platforms, potentially expanding robot delivery to new markets and making last-mile logistics more sustainable and cost-effective.
Source: Robotics & Automation News (roboticsandautomationnews.com) · Published 2023-09-05 · “Delivery robots company Starship Technologies and mobility app Bolt form new partnership”