Starship Technologies, a Tallinn, Estonia- and London, UK-based company building a fleet of autonomous robots designed to deliver goods locally, raised $17.2m (approx. €16.5m) in seed funding.
The round was led by Daimler AG, with participation from Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, ZX Ventures, Morpheus Ventures, Grishin Robotics, Playfair Capital and a number of other investors.
Launched in July 2014, by two Skype co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, Starship Technologies Starship Technologies is building a fleet of autonomous robots designed to deliver goods locally in 15-30 minutes within a 2-3 mile radius. The robots drive autonomously but are monitored by humans who can take over control at any time. The company, which has entered a partnership with Daimler-owned Mercedes-Benz Vans in 2016 to begin developing and testing Robovan, a transportation system integrating specifically adapted vans with autonomous delivery robots, is running commercial delivery pilot programs in the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland and Estonia with partners like Just Eat, Hermes, Metro Group, Swiss Post, Wolt and others offering robotic delivery for the food, grocery and parcel industries.
Robots developed by Starship Technologies have now covered over 16,000 miles around the world in 16 countries and 59 cities, encountering over 3.1 million people, and recently started testing in Washington D.C., Redwood City, California and Fayetteville, Arkansas.
FinSMEs
13/01/2017