Thousands of autonomous delivery robots are about to descend on American university campuses

The ultimate university experience of delivering pizza to your dormitory is about to be improved. Starship Technologies announced Tuesday its intention to roll out thousands of its six-wheel-standing autonomous delivery bots on university campuses across the country over the next two years, after raising $ 40 million in Series A funding.

This is a big step for the startup based in San Francisco (born Estonia) and its robots, which have been tested in over 100 cities in 20 different countries, have traveled 350,000 km, covered 4 million streets and have just crossed the 100,000th delivery bar. University campuses, with their abundance of walking trails, their well-defined boundaries and their student body focused on the use of smart phones, are an obvious venue for Starship to embark on the next phase of its activity.

The company works closely with the administrations of each college where it plans to embark. This began at George Mason University and at the University of Northern Arizona; it will be followed in September from the University of Pittsburgh and Purdue University in Indiana. Starship plans to deploy 25 to 50 robots on each campus over the next 24 months, which means that more than 5,000 robots could be installed around these schools by 2021.

Each robot is electric, has a trunk that can hold about 20 kilos of cargo and a series of cameras around the outside to identify obstacles and help guide the robot to its destination. They have a delivery radius of 3 to 4 miles and can travel at a maximum speed of 4 mph, which is obviously slower than a delivery by a human bike or car. Starship CEO Lex Bayer said it's the robot's ability to work for many hours without interruption that gives it an advantage.

"There is no guilt or shame," Bayer said. "You can order whatever you want, whenever you want. And you will not have to worry about another student you send to do this pickup for you. It's just a robot that will deliver it to you. "

Robots can climb curbs but not stairs, which may limit their appeal to customers living in multi-storey buildings. Bayer explains that this is why Starship targets less dense and lower-priced markets. But he also speculates that if the delivery of the robots takes off, the owners of the buildings could eventually decide to include a separate gate reserved for robots, much like the cat owner would include a door flap for his pet. "Certainly possible in the future," he opines.

With the closing of this series of Series A financing, Starship has now raised $ 85 million. The series was led by Morpheus Ventures and previous investors, including Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners and MetaPlanet Holdings, as well as new investors such as TDK Ventures, Qu Ventures and others.

Starship earns money by charging customers $ 1.99 per order. He also has contracts with universities and restaurants for which he delivers, but Bayer says Starship can be more profitable than competing, human-powered (and heavily subsidized) distribution services such as DoorDash and Postmates.

"It's a very difficult business to manage for these other companies," he said. "I think what they've really proven is that consumers want deliveries, they like the convenience, but it's very complicated and questionable to run the business model. On the other hand, we use an autonomous technology to do it. It's a completely different approach. "

Starship is not the only company that is interested in autonomous delivery. There are many startups running different size distribution robots, ranging from full size minivans like Udelv to robots almost identical to those of Starship, like Amazon. There are even some like Nuro, who created what can be described as a robotic mini-car, somewhere in between. All claim to be autonomous, but some need human observers to track their movements.

Online shopping could be multiplied by five over the next decade, as US consumers spend more than $ 100 billion on home food products by 2025, according to a recent report. Despite this strong competition, Bayer is convinced that Starship will be in pole position in this changing space.

"As for the competition, we really think – and I'm sorry, it's a terrible word game – but we're literally miles and miles away," he says. "We do not use handlers, nobody follows our robots, no hunting vehicles. The robots are literally there in the neighborhoods, in the universities, on the road, we drive autonomously, we cross streets autonomously, we operate seven days a week, from 8 am to 2 am. It is day, night, rain or rain. We even drove in the snow for several days on some of these campuses. So, you know, we are so far ahead. "