Robot Delivery Service Starship Technologies Raises $90mn in new Funding

Starship Technologies, the company putting delivery robots on streets in the US and Europe, has raised $90 million, co-led by Plural and Iconical. The new funding, which brings the total raised by Starship to $230mn since its creation in 2014, will be used to expand globally as Starship looks to take advantage of the rise in demand for home deliveries. 

This round was co-led by Plural and Iconical.

Launched in 2014, the company has made more than six million deliveries and transforming last-mile delivery.

Found in 80 locations across the world including the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Estonia and Finland, the robots use less energy than humans* to deliver takeaways, grocery orders, tools and corporate documents to customers’ doors. 

Each Starship robot can run for 18 hours fully charged.

Since launch, Starship robots have reduced almost 1.8mn kg of carbon dioxide.

As well, by using robots, rather than humans on low wages riding through traffic, it has pioneered a more ethical, sustainable business that is used by customers including Bolt, Co-Op, Grubhub and Sodexo. 

The new investment round will also enable Starship to use continuing advances in AI and machine learning to further develop its AI, tech and wireless charging infrastructure.

Ahti Heinla, Co-founder and CEO at Starship Technologies, says: “Autonomous delivery isn’t some science fiction concept from Bladerunner for decades in the future, it’s a reality for hundreds of thousands of people every day. Building a company like Starship takes at least a decade of perfecting the technology, streamlining operations and reducing costs to make last-mile autonomous delivery viable and sustainable at scale. Now we’re ready to take on the world and with ambitions to build a category-dominating company that can change the daily lives of millions of people in thousands of locations worldwide.”

Taavet Hinrikus, Partner at Plural, adds: “Starship is the global leader in autonomous technology, built in Europe. For the past 10 years, the team have been working tirelessly to build the most advanced autonomous logistics technology in the world, driving more miles and making more deliveries than any other company, whilst reducing the impact of last-mile and on-demand delivery on the planet. The culmination of this hard work over the past decade and this new funding means Starship is well-positioned for accelerated growth. We’re looking forward to supporting Ahti and the team on this journey to becoming one of Europe’s most successful global companies.” 

Starship's team members are based at the founding office in Tallinn, Estonia, in its global HQ, San Francisco and across the US, UK, Denmark, Finland and Germany.