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Marble

April 16, 2019

Here’s The Spoon’s 2019 Food Robotics Market Map

Today we head to San Francisco for The Spoon’s first-ever food-robotics event. ArticulAte kicks off at 9:05 a.m. sharp at the General Assembly venue in SF, and throughout the daylong event talk will be about all things robots, from the technology itself to business and regulatory issues surrounding it.

When you stop and look around the food industry, whether it’s new restaurants embracing automation or companies changing the way we get our groceries, it’s easy to see why the food robotics market is projected to be a $3.1 billion market by 2025.

But there’s no one way to make a robot, and so to give you a sense of who’s who in this space, and to celebrate the start of ArticulAte, The Spoon’s editors put together this market map of the food robotics landscape.

This is the first edition of this map, which we’ll improve and build upon as the market changes and grows. If you have any suggestions for other companies or see ones we missed you think should be in there, let us know by leaving a comment below or emailing us at tips@thespoon.tech.

Click on the map below to enlarge it.

The Food Robotics Market 2019:

October 19, 2018

Dallas Will Be Home to Cowboys and Delivery Robots

The Dallas city council agreed this week to a six-month pilot program that will put delivery robots on its city streets.

San Francisco-based Marble will provide up to 20 of its squat, cooler-like, four-wheeled robots to cruise Dallas city sidewalks at about 5 miles per hour to make door-to-door deliveries of things like restaurant meals, groceries or even prescriptions.

There are some robotic restrictions in the Dallas pilot. According to the Dallas Morning News, only select city sidewalks will be used during the program, and before the test can begin, Marble needs to map out the delivery areas before it can deploy the robots. Once active, robots must have a human on hand accompanying them (presumably to stop them from going rogue and rising up to take over).

The Lonestar state is starting to get lousy with robots. Dallas joins other Texa-tropolises such as Arlington and Austin in running robot delivery tests. Surprisingly, it’s in Marble’s own backyard that there has been the most resistance to this trend. Last year San Francisco imposed tight restrictions on commercial robot delivery.

Delivery robots have the capacity to drastically alter last mile delivery logistics, especially for densely populated, urban areas. As the technology improves, robots will be able to shed their human babysitters and autonomously scurry around anytime of day or night to drop off everything from baby medicine to a late night burrito, without adding to traffic congestion with more delivery vans and cars.

The robot delivery space itself is also getting crowded. In addition to Marble, other startups such as Starship and Kiwi are running their own robot delivery pilot programs in various cities.

All these robots running about will create sidewalk congestion and entirely new issues as pedestrians get used to sharing space with fleets of mobile machines. But in addition to people getting deliveries, cities will also be getting something valuable out of these robot trials: data. Presumably the data collected by robots (how and when sidewalks are most crowded, which direction people are going, etc.) can be used in city planning to make moving around easier and more efficient.

And, ideally, to make room for more robots.

June 8, 2018

Starship Raises $25 Million to Roll Out More Delivery Robots

Starship Technologies, makers of squat, autonomous wheeled delivery robots, announced yesterday that the company has raised $25 million in additional “seed” funding. The round includes follow-on investments from existing backers including Matrix Partners and Morpheus Ventures. This brings the total amount the company has raised to $42.2 million. The company also announced it has brought on Lex Bayer, a former Airbnb exec as Starship’s new CEO.

Starship’s rolling robots can be used to deliver items like packages, restaurant food or groceries within an hour. They are currently in pilot programs in Redwood City, CA and Washington DC, and according to press materials, Starship robots have covered 100,000 miles in 20 countries and 100 cities around the world.

Starship, which also counts Daimler Benz as an investor, said the new money will help scale its business. Earlier this year, the company announced that it would deploy 1,000 delivery robots to corporate and academic campuses across the U.S. and Europe by the end of the year.

The robot delivery space is certainly heating up. In addition to Starship, Marble has its own fleet of delivery robots, and counts DoorDash as a partner. DoorDash may also be working on its own robots as part of its own moonshot initiatives program. Kiwi robots are rolling around UC Berkeley’s campus delivering food. And over in China, Alibaba just unveiled its own driverless delivery robot, the G Plus.

But the biggest hurdle for Starship isn’t the competition, it’s state and local laws. While states like Virginia and Wisconsin have passed laws permitting robot deliveries, San Franciso has tightened restrictions on how they can be used. That’s one reason why Starship’s rollout on campuses is a smart decision. It can work out and improve its technology on private property, sidestepping those municipal hurdles.

If you’re intrigued by robots and want to learn more about how they are impacting the food industry, be sure to check out our podcast, The Automat, which hosts entertaining and informative conversations about tomorrow’s food-related robots and artificial intelligence today.

August 27, 2017

The Spoon Video Top Three: Food Truck Tech, Robo-delivery and Instant Aging For Wine

It’s the Spoon’s video top 3, recaping three trending stories about the future of food, cooking and the kitchen from the past week.

This week’s we take a look at Bistro Planets’s food truck tech, DoorDash’s pilot program with Marble for delivery robots and whether or not instant aging is the newest trend in wine.

Enjoy!

August 17, 2017

Delivery Platform DoorDash Hires Marble’s Robot Drivers For Food Delivery

If you live in San Francisco and order from DoorDash, you might find a friendly Marble robot on your front door step the next time you get takeout. Today DoorDash announced it would be using autonomous ground-delivery robots made by Marble, a robotics startup, for a food delivery pilot program in select San Francisco neighborhoods.

Marble was founded in 2015 by robotics enthusiasts Matt Delaney, Jason Calaiaro, Kevin Peterson while they attended Carnegie Mellon and describes themselves as a “scrappy robotics startup” working to build autonomous urban delivery robots. Scrappy as they might be, DoorDash is the second delivery pilot they’ve announced this year, partnering in April with Yelp’s Eat24.

The companies report that the pilot will allow them to “explore how to best optimize last-mile deliveries” and the first restaurant to take part in the robot delivery program fast food chain Jack in the Box. They made a quick video to show off Marble robots toting its first DoorDash deliveries in the North Beach neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Jack in the Box | Robot Delivery

The revenue model for robotics companies to partner with retail or food delivery services hasn’t been fully divulged; a spokesperson did say that Marble is being compensated for the work done in the pilot but declined to elaborate. However, delivery fees for a robot driver versus a human are the same for DoorDash customers. Marble said it didn’t have any hard data about how robot drivers create cost savings for delivery companies but that it hoped to share that information down the road.

Food delivery is an increasingly crowded space; aside from traditional restaurant delivery, “new delivery models” – companies like DoorDash, GrubHub and Eat24 – is expected to be a $20 billion market by 2025 according to a McKinsey report. In order to create efficiencies and differentiate, companies are looking to innovations like robot delivery drivers to stay ahead. And Marble isn’t the only game in sidewalk robotic delivery – former founders of Skype launched autonomous robotics startup Starship and received a $17 milllion investment earlier this year from carmarker Daimler Benz.

Starship had also announced a pilot in Redwood City, CA with DoorDash earlier this year. When asked if this program was designed to replace the competitive pilot, DoorDash responded that it was “…continuing the existing pilot with Starship in Redwood City, Washington DC, San Carlos and Sunnyvale. The Marble partnership adds to that relationship, allowing DoorDash to bring robot deliveries to San Francisco while also testing a new type of form factor and technology.”

Meanwhile, if you happen to see a Marble delivery robot on the sidewalk, you’ll probably see a human chaperone with it to answer questions and assist with interactions. At times when there isn’t a person nearby, Marble says they have remote operators ready to assist with issues and so far, they haven’t encountered any problems in the neighborhoods they’re serving.

May 23, 2017

Minor Roadblocks Stand in the Way of Personal Delivery Devices

Think about how crazy your dog gets chasing a Roomba around the living room. Multiple that chaos by several hundred and you have folks on sidewalks jumping out of the way as robots that resemble oversized canister vacuum cleaners scurry along their appointed rounds making food deliveries.

At least that’s the thinking of San Francisco City Supervisor Norman Yee. As he remarked to Government Technology, “I want to keep our sidewalks safe for people,” Yee said. “Seniors, children, people with disabilities can’t maneuver quickly” (to avoid robots).

The San Francisco area is ground zero for testing of robotics delivery agents. Marble, a venture-backed startup based in San Francisco has its robots delivering meals in the Mission District and Portero Hill for those using the Yelp Eat24 app. Starship Technologies is working with DoorDash in Redwood City while Postmates ran a test in San Francisco for one day last year. On the brink of joining the autonomous delivery mix is Dispatch, a South San Francisco startup.

The future of Personal Delivery Devices—as they are called in legal circles—is wrapped up in a battle of often conflicting interests. Restaurants look at their cost-saving potential with the ability to win loyal customers with quick, efficient delivery. For some chefs, PDDs can allow such visionaries as Anthony Strong to start virtual restaurants where home delivery replaces the need to have a physical dining establishment. In addition, using a fleet of robots can allow grocery stores and restaurants to offer delivery to suburban areas considered too costly to serve.

Early in its life cycle, autonomous delivery has met few legal challenges. San Carlos and Redwood City in California and Washington, D.C. have approved robotic delivery. Virginia and Idaho permit them at the state level, and in Wisconsin, a bill awaiting signature will permit robots to use sidewalks and crosswalks. Legislation, however, is not that straightforward with some companies using the law to keep competition at bay. For example, as a story in Recode points out, the Virginia law—drafted with the help of Starship Technologies– only permits robots under 50 pounds to be legally sanctioned; Marble’s autonomous delivery exceed that weight restriction.

While its impact can be debated, there is no debate that robots will replace workers in many sectors, including home delivery services. Given the entry level of such work, it’s likely not to be a hot button issue among labor leaders whose focus will be more on robots replacing skilled workers in manufacturing. As for robots replacing chefs—that should be a more interesting matter.

Also overlooked by many is the impact PDDs have on crowded sidewalks. As Treehugger.com puts it: “It all seems so quick and simple: design a cute little delivery AV and just let them loose onto the sidewalks. Because nobody ever asks what the pedestrians think, they don’t matter.”

“People don’t think about the negative impacts of these creative new ideas until it’s too late,” San Francisco’s Yee said. He believes for example that the Uber and Lyft cars that flood city streets cause traffic jams. “I’m trying to prevent some of the things that we did not prevent with other innovations” like ride hailing, he said.

April 19, 2017

The Sidewalk’s Getting Crowded As Marble & Yelp Launch Starship Robot Delivery Competitor

While Amazon’s trying to figure out how to deliver Prime packages using drones, other startups are making land grabs for the sidewalk delivery market. We wrote last year about Starship, the robot delivery vehicle made from the brains of Skype co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis. Starship was the first to start actively piloting robot delivery drivers around the streets of London; the robots were equipped with sophisticated onboard software that allowed them to autonomously navigate city streets to deliver goods door-to-door.

Now Starship has some competition in the form of a new partnership from Yelp’s food delivery service Eat24 and Marble, a startup that’s creating a “fleet of intelligent courier robots” made for urban delivery usage. Yelp Eat24 and Marble are together bringing robot food delivery to the streets of San Francisco. TechCrunch spotted the Marble vehicles earlier in the month and the duo made their official announcement late last week.

The Yelp Eat24 use of the Marble robots works the same as their normal delivery service; the company works with about 40,000 restaurants but offers delivery as an opt-in feature the restaurant can use for an additional fee. Marble effectively becomes another delivery vendor for Yelp, collecting a fee for each trip and yes – robots do accept tips.

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CNET takes a look at both Starship and Marble sidewalk delivery robots.

Marble’s robots are built to be modular – these particular models are designed for quick food delivery, with a pod that can hold a bag that keeps food cold or warm. But the cargo area could also be designed to carry other goods like medicine and could even be outfitted to have an onboard oven to actively cook food as it travels.

Marble is a direct competitor to Starship and offering delivery in San Francisco is upping the game; Starship announced earlier this year that it would start delivering in Washington, D.C. via delivery partner Postmates and in Redwood City, CA using DoorDash.

Both Marble and Starship have committed to sending human “chaperones” with the sidewalk robots for their early journeys. Marble said it was in order to answer questions about the robot to interested pedestrians, but it’s probably also to gather qualitative data about how people react to the robots and what real life risks they might encounter.

It’s not a surprise that the market for food delivery in the U.S. is so hot – 2015 was the first year that Americans spent more on takeout food than they did on traditional groceries. Not only that, but millennials – the generation quickly taking over the baby boomers in size and buying power – indicate that they are more eager than most to order prepared takeout food. If companies can figure out how to reliably deliver that food without lots of overhead and outsource a lower skilled job to friendly robots, the way we get our food a decade from now will be drastically different.

Robot food delivery is probably just the beginning; as Marble’s modular build suggests, the opportunity for having other goods delivered is real and could easily be accomplished by a partnership with a healthcare system (medicine) or a retail giant like Target or Walmart. Amazon competition, anyone?

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