Starship Technologies raises $100m as demand for autonomous delivery service increases
Autonomous delivery services specialist, Starship Technologies, has raised $100 million in the last 30 days, including a new $42 million Series B funding round led by the Japanese-Nordic VC firm NordicNinja and Estonia’s Taavet+Sten.
The Series B cash will help Starship further scale its service and launch in new cities in North America and Europe, including university campuses in the US.
An undisclosed amount of funding is also being donated directly to the Red Cross in Ukraine.
The $100 million, including a $57 million investment from the European Investment Bank (EIB), doubles the company’s funding and brings Starship’s total funding to $202 million.
Other investors in the Series B round include TDK Ventures, and Goodyear.
“Everyone is talking about how to fix the issues with last mile delivery,“ says Shinichi Nikkuni, Managing Partner at NordicNinja VC.
“Time and again, Starship has proven itself to be years ahead of others with world leading autonomous driving technology for sidewalk delivery, leading to accumulating more and more data and experiences through much wider commercial operations.”
“There aren’t many companies that have a truly autonomous service that has earned so much customer loyalty and adoration. We think Starship has found the right formula for success on a global scale and are excited to be part of their future journey.”
“The autonomous delivery market has been gaining momentum the past couple of years and we think it will really take off this year,” comments Alastair Westgarth, CEO at Starship Technologies.
“The demand for Starship’s services continues to rapidly increase and we are regularly contacted by more college campuses and cities that want our services, often because they hear about the great results that we are already delivering.”
“I’m impressed with every member of our team who believes in what we are doing and has helped us hit yet another milestone of three million commercial deliveries. I also appreciate the investors who trust our vision and who are helping us get to the next phase of our journey.“
“We know this industry inside out, because we invented it,” says Ahti Heinla, Co-founder and CTO, Starship Technologies.
“So many unexpected things have happened to get us where we are today but I think we can all agree that on-demand services are mainstream and not going away anytime soon.”
“While other companies in this space are busy making claims, we are gladly very busy making thousands of autonomous deliveries every day and improving the efficiency of our service.”
