Ocado Group and Wayve agree autonomous grocery delivery tie up

Ocado Group has announced a partnership with and £10 million investment in startup Wayve as it looks to accelerate the development of autonomous grocery deliveries for complex urban environments. 

This closely follows Asda’s tie up with Wayve.

The collaboration includes an autonomous delivery trial that will see Wayve’s deep learning and camera-based technology technology fitted onto a selection of Ocado vans and tested out on urban routes for 12 months.

A portion of Ocado’s existing delivery fleet will also be outfitted with Wayve’s data collection devices to provide data for training and validating Wayve’s technology. 

Alex Harvey, Chief of Advanced Technology, Ocado Group, comments: “We are on a journey to develop highly intelligent autonomous mobility systems to further transform the operational economics, and proposition, of the Ocado Smart Platform for our OSP retail partners.”

“We’ve been impressed with Wayve’s approach to solving this most complex of challenges and are excited to accelerate our capabilities so that our retail partners globally can take advantage of them at the earliest opportunity.” 

Alex Kendall, CEO at Wayve, says: “Ocado Group has been driving innovation in global grocery logistics for decades. Their cutting-edge approach to grocery operations and international reach aligns strongly with Wayve’s culture and global ambitions.”

“I am incredibly excited to collaborate with Ocado Group and learn from their vast expertise. Globally, there is huge momentum to transform mobility in grocery operations right now.”

“We are focused on delivering an autonomous last mile solution to support the needs of grocery retailers everywhere. Through this partnership we aim to unlock autonomous delivery faster in more places worldwide.”