Postmates’ robotics division, which spun off as Serve Robotics in February of this year following last year’s purchase of Postmates by Uber, announced an expanded $13 million seed funding round on Monday (Dec. 6).
During the spin-off, Serve said it planed to look into deploying fleets of sidewalk delivery robots around the U.S., which was already happening in Los Angeles prior to Uber buying the company.
This additional funding will help Serve continue to grow its employee base and develop more technology.
“This extension of funding will enable us to grow our commercial operations by adding more robots, more partners, and launching more markets in the coming year,” CEO Ali Kashani said, per a VentureBeat report. “Within the next two to three years, we would like to see our robots in every major U.S. city.”
The funding round was supported by strategic investors Uber, Delivery Hero, 7-Eleven’s corporate venture arm, and Wavemaker Partners’ Wavemaker Labs.
There have been a proliferation of delivery robots in recent years, and the Serve press release notes that the company has completed “tens of thousands” of autonomous deliveries in Los Angeles and San Fransisco.
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As the VentureBeat report notes, delivery robots have become popular on various campuses, cutting down on human interactions during the pandemic and filling in for absent delivery drivers.
PYMNTS writes that Uber has been making big strides into the delivery world, including both the Postmates buy and its partnership with Gopuff, which rolled out in 95 cities in June and put Uber Eats into more households.
See also: Five Big Milestones Mark Uber’s March From Rides to Logistics
The partnership saw Uber Pass and Eats Pass members having their delivery charges waived on Gopuff orders over $15, allowing more users to access grocery deliveries.
With these moves, Uber’s reach is almost at the level of DoorDash, which holds 44% of the market share in the U.S.
Uber’s ambitions are also global, having purchased the Chilean grocery delivery startup Cornershop in June.
