Food Delivery Robot
food delivery robot serve
More food delivery robot news, this time from the spoon 12/6/2021 — here is pr on Serve– Wavemaker seems to be an aggregator of sorts building automation portfolio.
In Brief
- West Hollywood is current trial
- 7-Eleven has been toying in California with Nuro
- Specific scenarios are low hanging fruit for delivery robots
- Wavemaker Labs incubating a lineup ranging from its back-of-house frybot in Flippy from Miso, an autonomous pizza-making machine in Piestro, and its robotic kitchen robot in Nommi. Now adding food delivery robot Serve.
- Relevant seekingalpha links below
Excerpt
Serve Robotics, the autonomous sidewalk delivery robot spinout of Postmates (which itself was acquired by Uber), has announced a $13 million expanded seed round of funding. The new funding round includes several strategic investors, including former parent Uber Technologies, Delivery Hero backed DX Ventures,7-Eleven Inc.’s corporate venture arm, 7-Ventures, and Wavemaker Labs.
About Serve Robotics
Serve Robotics is shaping the future of sustainable, self-driving delivery. The company designs, develops and operates zero-emissions rovers that serve people in public spaces, starting with food delivery. Founded in 2017 as the robotics division of Postmates, Serve set out to build a robotic delivery experience that delights customers, improves reliability for merchants, and reduces vehicle emissions to zero. Four years later, the company’s self-driving rovers have successfully completed tens of thousands of contactless deliveries in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Spun off as an independent company in February 2021, Serve is backed by Uber and other world-class investors. Serve has several established commercial partnerships and continues to expand its partner platform. Find out more at www.serverobotics.com, follow us on social media via Twitter and Instagram, or apply to join our team on LinkedIn.
About Wavemaker Partners and Wavemaker Labs
Wavemaker Labs is a food automation focused venture studio that builds disruptive technologies alongside corporate partners. Its lead investor, Wavemaker Partners, is a global venture capital fund with over $600 million of assets under management. Specializing in food and agriculture, Wavemaker Labs’ goal is to help its partners think and execute like start-ups, and ultimately bring disruptive technology to market that advances their industry and business. Wavemaker has incubated and launched several robotics brands including Miso Robotics, Piestro, Bobacino and 800 Go. To learn more, visit https://www.wavemakerlabs.com.
More Background
- Alibaba (BABA -0.4%), JD.com (JD -2.9%), and Meituan (OTCPK:MPNGF -4.1%) expect to use a combined 2,000+ delivery robots by 2022, about a fourfold increase from current numbers, reports Reuters. Finding workers remains difficult in China and a Beijing mandated rest period for couriers has reduced efficiency.
- Robots come with benefits and limitations. University of Michigan researchers said that delivery robots could cut delivery costs by 10-40% in cities. However, robots have trouble accessing areas with stairs and are only allowed on certain regulated routes.
- Costs of manufacturing autonomous robots have fallen due to lower lidar sensor prices. Alibaba and JD both said their robots cost under 250,000 yuan ($38,700) and prices are falling.
- Meituan hopes to get prices below 200,000 yuan ($31,000) by 2025 when the industry is expected to operate over 10,000 robots.
- In the United States, Grubhub (GRUB -3.0%) rolled out its delivery robots at Ohio State last month.
Interesting Links
- https://seekingalpha.com/news/3745361-delivery-robots-to-increase-fourfold-at-chinese-tech-giants-by-2022
- https://seekingalpha.com/news/3732354-grubhub-sets-robots-free-on-ohio-state-campus-for-food-delivery
- https://seekingalpha.com/news/3668357-uber-spins-off-postmates-robotic-delivery-unit-in-profitability-push
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