Bolt and Starship Technologies Partner to Develop Autonomous Deliveries

Bolt and Starship Technologies have partnered to develop autonomous deliveries of meals and groceries.

The collaboration brings together Bolt’s experience in offering ride-hailing, micromobility, and food and grocery delivery services and Starship Technologies’ autonomous delivery vehicles, the companies said in a Wednesday (June 21) press release.

Their new efforts will begin with a pilot program in which Starship delivery robots will work with Bolt Food in Tallinn, Estonia, according to the release. They aim to later expand this delivery option to millions of Bolt Food customers.

“Both Bolt and Starship have created innovative products which have revolutionized the way people move around and buy and receive goods in cities,” Bolt President Jevgeni Kabanov said in the release.

Bolt’s services have more than 100 million users in 500 cities in 45 countries, according to the release.

Starship Technologies has completed 5 million commercial deliveries worldwide, seven months after reaching the 4-million-delivery milestone in November, the release said.

“Bolt and Starship share very similar goals of promoting sustainability in local transport,” Starship Technologies CEO Alastair Westgarth said in the release. “In our case, we offer a convenient and on-demand autonomous delivery service, perfectly aligning with the mission of making cities more eco-friendly.”

This news comes eight months after Starship Technologies and food ordering and delivery firm Grubhub announced they were expanding the number of U.S. college campuses at which they offer robot delivery services.

That partnership gives more than 170,000 students at more than 25 schools access to robot delivery services.

“Robot delivery solves the unique challenges of accessing hard-to-reach areas that come from operating on a college campus,” Grubhub Senior Director of Campus Partnerships Adam Herbert said when announcing the partnership in October. “With Starship’s robots, students can enjoy a fun, new way to order their favorite meals right to their door — whether that be the library, their dorm, academic hall or another campus building.”

In January, Bolt partnered with Lagos-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup CredPal to bring a ride now, pay later option to Nigeria.

The deal aims to enable users to defer ride payments for a month.