By Lea Mira, RTN staff writer - 10.15.2025
Starship Technologies is punching a larger bet on autonomous delivery with its announcement of a $50 million funding round aimed at accelerating its growth in the U.S. market. The company plans to expand its robot fleet from roughly 2,700 units today to around 12,000 by 2027. That level of scale, Starship maintains, will set it apart from competitors still operating mostly in limited pilots and trials.
To date, Starship has built one of the most mature autonomous delivery networks in the world. Its fleet has completed more than 8 million deliveries and traveled over 10 million miles in real-world conditions, giving it a depth of operational data few others can match. The company’s robots now operate on more than 55 college campuses across the U.S. and in multiple European cities. Starship says its fleet completes more than 150,000 road crossings every day, guided by sensors, cameras, and machine learning systems that allow for continuous route optimization. On campuses, the company’s long-running partnership with Grubhub has helped students order meals from both major chains and local eateries. In Europe, it has a delivery partnership with Wolt, a subsidiary of DoorDash. Starship reports that in early 2025 alone, campus order volumes grew by more than 70 percent year over year.
The new investment brings Starship’s total funding to over $280 million, providing the capital needed to pursue its next phase of expansion. Investors in the round include Plural, Karma.vc, Latitude, Coefficient Capital, SmartCap, and Skaala. For a company already viewed as a leader in the autonomous delivery space, this funding round underscores continued confidence in its business model and technology stack.
At the same time, Starship’s rapid growth is happening within an increasingly competitive landscape. Serve Robotics, for instance, recently signed a multiyear partnership with DoorDash to deploy sidewalk delivery robots in Los Angeles. Serve has already completed more than 100,000 deliveries and operates in several major U.S. cities. DoorDash itself continues to invest heavily in automation, piloting its own in-house robots while also working with companies such as Coco Robotics in Chicago and Los Angeles. Uber, meanwhile, is expanding its autonomous delivery partnerships through Serve and other ventures.
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For restaurant operators, the promise of this technology is increasingly relevant. Delivery robots can help reduce per-order labor costs, improve reliability, and enable faster fulfillment during peak demand. They also allow operators to maintain greater control over the customer experience, particularly compared to third-party gig models. However, the technology still faces considerable challenges. Urban infrastructure was never designed for autonomous robots, which must safely navigate sidewalks, curbs, crosswalks, and unpredictable pedestrian traffic. Weather conditions and battery range remain limitations. Cities also vary widely in how they regulate or permit robot deliveries, forcing companies to navigate a patchwork of local rules and liability requirements.
There are economic challenges as well. Each robot’s financial return depends on maintaining high utilization rates. Off-peak hours and low-density delivery zones can undercut efficiency. Hardware costs, sensor maintenance, software updates, and the need for remote human oversight all affect profitability. Starship’s model, which combines centralized logistics, AI-based routing, and real-world deployment data, is designed to overcome some of these hurdles, but the economics of scale will be the true test.
Even so, Starship believes it has the experience and infrastructure to lead the next phase of autonomous delivery. Its extensive database of delivery data allows for continuous refinement of navigation algorithms and route prediction, making each generation of robots smarter and more efficient than the last. With both investor momentum and operational experience behind it, the company sees 2026 and 2027 as breakthrough years in which robots move from pilot programs to everyday delivery partners.
If Starship succeeds, the sight of small rolling robots delivering takeout and groceries could become part of the urban landscape rather than a novelty. For restaurants, the future of last-mile logistics may soon involve a new set of choices: not just between gig drivers and in-house fleets, but between human, robotic, and hybrid delivery strategies designed to balance cost, speed, and customer satisfaction.
