Starship Technologies obtains funding for autonomous deliveries across the U.S. - The Robot Report

Starship Technologies, a company founded in 2014 by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total investment to over $280 million. The San Francisco-based firm operates what it claims is the largest autonomous delivery network globally, with more than 2,700 robots completing over 9 million deliveries across 270+ locations in seven countries. Starship plans to expand its robotic delivery services from U.S. university campuses and European cities into broader North American urban markets, aiming to offer sub-30-minute deliveries to millions of consumers. The company emphasizes its progress in achieving SAE Level 4 autonomy, improving robot autonomy by double-digit percentages annually, and addressing challenges such as safety validation, regulatory compliance, all-weather reliability, and profitability at scale. Starship leverages a combination of classical algorithms, computer vision, and neural networks optimized for edge computing to enhance its robots' performance while maintaining rigorous safety standards.