When DoorDash closed its $535 million Series D round in March, we wondered if that meant more robot delivery vehicles were on the way. Based on a job listing by the company, it looks like we will, and possibly some drones and self-driving cars too boot.
The job listing is for a Software Engineer, Special Projects. And according to the posting they are “forming a new team at DoorDash dedicated to tackling big bets and moonshot initiatives. Think self driving cars, robotics, drones, chatbots, etc.”
The company is “looking for entrepreneurs to join the founding team,” and the role reports directly to the Co-founder (doesn’t say which one). It goes on to say that the person hired will “Build the 10x ideas from the ground up e.g. robotics, drones, next-gen dispatch, ML-chatbots, strategic partnerships, etc.”
DoorDash has already used robots from Marble for delivery in certain San Francisco neighborhoods. Moving some of that R&D in-house could mean the company is looking to build its own, customized version of one.
The listing doesn’t have a posted date, so we don’t know exactly how long they’ve been searching for such a role. We reached out to DoorDash for a comment, but didn’t hear back in time for publication. We will update this post when we hear back from the company.
A little less than a month ago, DoorDash expanded beyond restaurant delivery and into groceries with a partnership with Walmart in Atlanta. DoorDash is basically powering the logistics and delivery as more of a while label for Walmart in that instance. With 10 percent of U.S. consumers now regularly buying groceries online, getting into that category is a big opportunity. But it also brings bigger competitors, namely Amazon, which is a master of logistics and delivery. DoorDash will need to be innovative as it looks to possibly take on Bezos and company.
DoorDash COO Christopher Payne will be speaking at our Smart Kitchen Summit in October. Hopefully he’ll bring robot or drone or a robot piloting a drone with him.
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