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Ahti Heinla, Co-Founder & CTOReducing the ‘human element’ within the process remains a long shot for many consumer-centric enterprises and delivery providers. Yet, they envision a bright but distant future wherein robots can do the ‘delivery heavy lifting.’ What holds them back is not necessarily organizational inertia and resistance to change, nor concerns about robots’ performance being on par with that of human capabilities, but rather concerns of cost. Since consumers tend to be discouraged by delivery charges, lesser investments are made to modernize the process. This is what Starship Technologies intends to change.
Given the relatively new field that it is, robots are generally yet to be affordable for large-scale implementation, but Starship is redefining the scope of robots for last mile delivery with their ‘delivery robots as a service’ model. Additionally, the company aims to redefine the ‘future of work’ through their recently launched campus initiative; the first large-scale deployment of autonomous delivery services, implementing robots to assist in work and school environments. The robots offer on-demand delivery anywhere on participating campuses via an app, offering employees the flexibility and convenience of having food and supplies delivered when and where they want, eliminating unwanted errands and waiting in line.
Starship’s approach enables companies to scale their deliveries on demand and fills the void owing to shortages of delivery personnel. The robots can navigate around objects and people causing seamlessly. In addition to building and designing robotic technology, Starship also operates their network of robots. “We take complete care of charging and maintaining the robots, including accommodation during off times.
We are already at the level where our cost of operating robots is no more expensive than the human couriers
Any business or campus vendor requiring our delivery service only needs to tell us the time and location for the robot and where they need to transport the goods. All this essentially works within a minute’s notice,” says Ahti Heinla, co-founder and CTO at Starship. “Our robots have been built focusing on cost from day one, and we are already at the level where our operating costs are no more expensive than human couriers. So, we have really addressed this problem.”
With Starship, the dispatcher and the recipient have full visibility on the status of the robot enroute to delivery. The robot’s entire journey can be monitored on a smart-phone. There are also provisions wherein human operators can guide the robot, should any hurdles arise. Starship provides API level integration of their robotic services to the existing dispatch systems that the clients may have in place. As such, users can generate live statistics on their deliveries without having to compile information manually. From a security standpoint, the robot’s cargo bay can only be opened by the recipient.
Starship’s robots have been in action for over a year in select US and European cities. Since the company’s inception in 2014, its robots have successfully gone through demos, prototyping, pilot programs, and human-aided trials to be entirely autonomous by leveraging the power of AI and machine learning. Starship’s delivery robots have been tested in more than 100 cities and have travelled 100,000 miles, encountering over 12 million people. With the addition of Campus, Starship plans to partner with 20 campuses and deploy thousands of additional robots globally this year. Looking further ahead, the company will continue its ramp up of services across the globe.
Delivery robots company Starship Technologies and mobility app Bolt form new partnership
Thursday, September 07, 2023
Starship Technologies, a provider of autonomous delivery services, has agreed a new partnership with Bolt, the first European mobility “super-app”, as the two companies call it.
As the initial first step of the evolving collaboration, Bolt and Starship have signed a commercial partnership opening the door to thousands of robots doing Bolt Food deliveries across multiple countries, starting this year.
This announcement coincides with Starship celebrating another industry first milestone, having become the first company offering autonomous delivery to complete 5 million commercial deliveries around the world.
This landmark has been achieved just seven months since Starship marked 4 million deliveries in November 2022, demonstrating the ongoing and ever-increasing demand for such services.
Bolt has more than 100 million customers in over 45 countries and 500 cities around the world, including in Europe, Africa, West Asia and Latin America.
The company offers a range of mobility services including ride hailing, micromobility (e-scooter and e-bike rentals), food and grocery delivery and a free-floating car-sharing service.
The partnership with Starship means Bolt will now be able to offer a full range of multi-modal delivery options depending on basket size and distance, ultimately increasing profitability per delivery.
Jevgeni Kabanov, Bolt’s president, says: “Both Bolt and Starship have created innovative products which have revolutionised the way people move around and buy and receive goods in cities.
“We’re excited to bring our two services together through this new collaboration, which will provide millions of Bolt Food customers with a new, sustainable delivery option fulfilled by Starship’s smart and much-loved service which has had great success over the past five years.
“In the longer term we are hopeful about expanding our collaboration to make deliveries cheaper and more accessible to even more customers.”
Alastair Westgarth, CEO of Starship Technologies, says: “Bolt and Starship share very similar goals of making local transportation more sustainable. In our case, we provide a convenient and on-demand autonomous delivery service.
Ahti Heinla, co-founder and CTO of Starship Technologies, says: “We think the synergy with Bolt’s overall portfolio of services will not only help Starship expand to new markets but also provide some fun, fully electric, future proofed delivery options to the markets Bolt serves.”
Starship Technologies and Bolt share Estonian roots, a country now well known on the global stage for its digital innovation and being home to more tech unicorns per capita than any other country in the world.
In addition to Bolt, other tech unicorns from Estonia include Skype, the previous company of Starship’s co-founders.
Starship’s 2,000+ fleet of robots have been operating at the Level 4 level of autonomous driving since 2018, completing 140,000 road crossings globally every day.
In April 2023, the company announced that its robots had passed the 10 million km mark (over 6 million miles) in terms of distance travelled around the world. Starship claims this is “more than six times that of the 1 million mile mark recently announced by international self-driving car developers, Waymo and Cruise”.
Starship Technologies recently expanded its service in the UK to Wakefield, with the robots already a common sight in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Bedford, Cambourne, Cambridge, Leeds and Trafford, as well as multiple university campuses across the US.
Company
Starship Technologies
Management
Ahti Heinla, Co-Founder & CTO and Janus Friis, Co-Founder and Lex Bayer, CEO
Description
Starship Technologies has redefined the scope of robots for last mile delivery with their ‘delivery robots as a service’ model
