Robotics company and a big name in the world of self-driving autonomous robots, Starship Technologies, has received €50 million (just under $57 million at today’s rates) from the European Investment Bank, the funding arm of the European Union. The startup did not just pick up the funding; it has an endorsement in Europe that would help further its growth, with the company describing the funding as a “quasi-equity facility”, an implication that there is a venture loan involved in the mix.
The company did not though disclose its valuation with this investment but CEO Alastair Westgarth noted that this will not rule out more funding from investors. Starship has far back as 2019 raised a $40 million Series A round that was led by Morpheus Ventures and in January 2021 raised a further $17 million with strategic backers like TDK ventures and Goodyear Ventures, according to a Pitchbook data. The company has now made more than 2.5 million commercial deliveries (up from 2 million in October 2021) and travelled over 3 million miles globally, with Westgarth saying that on an average, its fleet is making 10,000 deliveries per day.
The San Francisco based company has a significant presence in Europe, with its primary R&D operation based out of Tallinn, and its first substantial city deployment in Milton Keynes in the UK. The Starship name has in the last two years, been coming up a lot as a delivery partner helping companies get food order to customers at a time when delivery drivers were in shorter supply, people wanted to move around less, and generally come into less contact with humans. The Milton Keynes service alone saw hundreds of thousands of deliveries, and Starship started to sign on some significant partners. In the UK, the list includes the grocery chains Tesco, Coop and Budgens, which partner with Starship primarily as a delivery vehicle not for its mega grocery stores, but for its centrally-located, smaller-format shops, which act as ‘dark stores’ stocking the items that Starship delivers to smaller radiuses around them. People order Starship deliveries via the startup’s iOS and Android apps.
Westgarth says that the current campus deployments are a majority of Starship’s business, with the signs pointing to a likely shift.
“Grocery will be larger in a year to 18 months,” he said. The addressable market for campuses that would likely use Starship’s services is around 400-500, he said, “but grocery is billions of dollars. We are chasing delivery services around the world. We can deliver like anyone on a bike, scooter or car, but we’re cheaper, and our robots get cheaper each year.” The average battery life is 18 hours and a typical robot can travel around 40km/day.
Humans are now monitoring at an operations centre for issues, with the company now operating its fleet as a level 4 autonomous system, and can if need be take over if a vehicle finds itself in an unexpected pickle, but that is not the default.
“99% of the time our robots have nobody involved. We make many deliveries without anyone involved,” Westgarth said.
The European Investment Bank funding has different implication for the EU: One of them is that it looks to promote more sustainable forms of transportation, both to reduce emissions and to reduce traffic on the roads. Another one is that it has had a long-term goal of backing tech startups to further its standing in the digital economy.
“Electric vehicles in all shapes and sizes will be part of our future, and can be a key part in the sustainable transport puzzle,” said EIB VP Thomas Östros in a statement. “Starship’s delivery robots are already proving their worth, and we are glad to support the company so that they can continue to develop their technology and scale-up their production.”
