[Funding alert] Estonian-based Starship Technologies Secures $90 Million in Funding

The robots, which are located in 80 sites worldwide—including the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, and Finland—deliver tools, corporate documents, takeout orders, and shopping orders to clients' doors while using less energy than people.

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Over the course of their global deployment, the delivery robots have made over six million autonomous deliveries and covered over 11 million kilometers. Janus Friis (co-founder of Skype) and Ahti Heinla (chief architect and CEO of Skype) launched Starship.

The most expensive and carbon-intensive part of the supply chain, last-mile and on-demand delivery, has proven to be a challenge for logistics companies around the world. As a result, Starship has developed the most economical, morally sound, and environmentally friendly method of delivering items close to a consumer, resolving the main issues facing the last-mile delivery sector.

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Additionally, by employing robots to navigate traffic in place of low-wage workers, it has created a more moral and sustainable industry that is used by clients like Bolt, Co-Op, Grubhub, and Sodexo.

At George Mason University in the US, Starship just implemented ground-breaking wireless charging for its robots. Starship robots can now wirelessly and independently recharge in between deliveries, a first for the world.

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Ahti Heinla, Co-founder and CEO at Starship Technologies, said: “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, said: “Starship is the global leader in autonomous technology, built in Europe. For the past ten years, the team has worked tirelessly to build the world's most advanced autonomous logistics technology, 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 look forward to supporting Ahti and the team on this journey to becoming one of Europe’s most successful global companies.”

The latest investment round, which brings Starship's total fundraising to $230 million, will allow the company to leverage ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning to further develop its technology, AI, and wireless charging infrastructure as it enters new international markets. This is especially important for its Delivery as a Service (DaaS) product, which allows Starship robots to integrate into its partners' delivery infrastructure.

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About Starship Technologies

Starship Technologies is redefining the last mile delivery industry. They build self-driving local delivery robots that are safe, reliable, clean and cost efficient. Starship was launched by Skype co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis in 2014. Just a few years later, their robots are now doing thousands of deliveries a day in towns, cities and campuses across the world.

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