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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

robot delivery

Ottonomy’s Delivery Robot Drops Food at Your Door and Indoors

There are a few common threads among most delivery robot startups like Starship, Kiwibot and Postmates: They are all using cooler-sized rover ‘bots. Each of their robots has just one cargo compartment. And they are all focused on outdoor delivery. This is where Ottonomy aims to separate itself from the rest of the pack.

Yes, Ottonomy makes rover robots like those other players. Ottonomy’s four-wheeled robot is twice the size of Starship’s robot, has autonomous driving capabilities, and can carry 40 to 45 kg (88 to 100 lbs.). But Ottonomy’s approach to delivery is a little different.

First, Ottonomy’s robot has two compartments, allowing it to make two separate deliveries during a single trip. This means the robot can generate more revenue per trip because it doesn’t have to return to a restaurant or market after every single drop-off.

More important, however, is where Ottonomy will make those deliveries. In addition to making last-mile deliveries, Ottonomy robots will make deliveries indoors. Think large transit hubs like airports or shopping malls. So, for example, a consumer waiting at an airport could order a meal from a participating airport restaurant and have it brought directly to them, wherever they are inside.

Ottonomy Co-Founder and CEO, Rutikar Vijay told me by phone this week that his robots can accomplish this indoor delivery because they do not rely as heavily on GPS to get around. The robots just need to map out the space once, and can then start making deliveries (Ottonomy robots cannot, however ride escalators or elevators).

In addition to opening up a new delivery market, making indoor deliveries could also be an easier path to market for Ottonomy. Unlike Kiwibot, which uses humans to plot delivery routes on public sidewalks, Ottonomy, as its name indicates, is all-in on autonomous driving (though there is still someone monitoring the robot). States and cities are all developing their own rules around autonomous delivery robots with varying levels of restrictions (which streets, operation house, whether a human needs to accompany the robot, etc.). Ottonomy isn’t avoiding outdoor deliveries in the U.S., but by going indoors and off city sidewalks, it can sidestep dealing with the patchwork of regulation and start generating revenue right away.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has kept most people from going to airports or congregating in large indoor areas, at some point we will again, and chances are good that robots will join us. In addition to Ottonomy, Cheetah Mobile in China has its FANBOT, which is basically a mobile vending machine that roams around hotel lobbies and cinemas.

That pandemic has also spurred more interest in robot delivery because of their contactless nature. Not only do they reduce a vector of human-to-human transmission, robots provide an additional method of delivery, which is more important than ever to restaurants.

Ottonomy has already been making deliveries in India and did a pilot last fall in an undisclosed transit hub. Vijay didn’t disclose pricing, but said that the company is exploring both a straight up robotics-as-a-service business model as well as one that includes revenue sharing.

Pink Dot Using Postmates’ Serve Robot to Delivery Food in West Hollywood

Residents of the Los Angeles neighborhood of West Hollywood shouldn’t be surprised if they see bright pink robots zipping along its sidewalks soon. Local market Pink Dot is now using Postmates’ Serve bot to make food deliveries in that part of town.

WehoVille reports that Pink Dot started using the robots last Thursday and that it is the only business using robots for deliveries in that neighborhood. Customers ordering food from Pink Dot through Postmates will have the option of choosing either a human or a robot make the delivery. When the robot arrives at a home or building, the customer will get a text message saying its food is there along with a special code to unlock the robot to retrieve their order.

Pink Dot is using three robots (named Pinky, Dotty and Solly), and the whole program is currently a three-month test. A human will still escort robots out on deliveries to help with any problems that arise, but those humans are hanging back to also see how people interact with the robots as they pass by (Pink Dot is giving out hats if you snap a selfie with the robot).

The robot deliveries from Pink Dot are also free of charge, as opposed to the $5 – $10 fee that comes with humans making the deliveries. This free robot service should help kickstart adoption, but we’ll have to see if a fee is implemented if robots delivery becomes more widespread.

It should be noted that this robot delivery program is happening right on the heels of Uber completing its acquisition of Postmates. While Uber has dabbled in drone delivery, it hasn’t really talked publicly about sidewalk robot delivery. But Uber Eats is currently the revenue generator for Uber, and anything that could help bring costs down for burrito deliveries is something Uber will be interested in.

One interesting aspect of this Pink Dot + Postmates delivery deal is that the robots are being co-branded by Pink Dot. So these robots won’t be serving any other restaurants or markets in the area. This also means that they’ll be advertising Pink Dot as they are out and about. Kiwi robots, which started rolling out in San Jose this past summer, have Kiwi branding and serve multiple restaurants in different neighborhoods there. Starship’s robots, which are making grocery deliveries in Modesto, CA, also carry their own Starship branding.

We bring it up because delivery robots are still an emerging business and there are questions around business models that make the most sense. Should robots be part of a third-party delivery fleet serving many restaurants, or leased directly to one restaurant/grocer for its own use?

Whether or not a robot is being leased by a particular establishment is also important because it speaks to the infrastructure needed to implement robot deliveries. If the robots are Pink Dot’s, then they will presumably live at that market, meaning they will wait and be charged there until they leave to make a delivery. If robots serve multiple restaurants, that raises questions about where the robots stay when they aren’t in use and where they are charged. For example, will they clutter city sidewalks?

We sent a note to Postmates with some follow up questions and will update this post when we hear back.

For those in WeHo who want to get a glimpse of the future, Pink Dot’s robots are available for delivery now, but only during daylight hours.

South Korea: LG’s Robots to Ride Elevators and Make Convenience Store Deliveries

Delivery robots are making their way indoors. At least, they are starting to in South Korea. ZDNet reports today that LG has started using its Cloi Servebots to make deliveries from a local convenience store to anyone within the LG Science Park in Seoul.

The Serve bot, which features a series of shelves to hold food and drinks, will be able to get on the elevator at the Science Park and navigate nine above-ground floors as well as the basement to make deliveries to people there.

Typically, food delivery robots stop outside of a building, requiring the recipient to come out to retrieve the order. But robots in South Korea are starting to cross that threshold, as it were, to venture inside office and residential buildings to make deliveries more direct.

Earlier this month, Woowa Brothers announced that it was working with HDC I-Controls and Hyundai Elevator to allow Dilly robots to enter a residential complex and autonomously work the elevator.

As with the Woowa deal, there are still some details left unclear by ZDNet’s report about LG’s machines. To use the Cloibot, a user places an order through the KakaoTalk chat app. A human at the GS25 convenience store packs the order into the robot and sends it off. Then, as ZDNet writes:

The robots will then depart and send their destination information to a nearby elevator wirelessly. Once the robots arrive at their destination, they will call and text the customer to notify them of their arrival.

As with Woowa, which didn’t mention how its robots would navigate to a specific apartment after getting off an elevator, we don’t know how far the LG bot will go. Will it travel to a lobby, or a conference room or to a specific desk? Hopefully we’ll see more details from LG soon.

The bigger point is that delivery robots are gaining the ability to traverse indoor settings at the right time. The pandemic has businesses looking for a way to reduce human-to-human contact to reduce potential virus transmission. Having a robot means that a store or restaurant doesn’t have to send one of its workers out to make deliveries, and office/residential buildings can cut down on the number of different people coming in and out its doors.

Self Point and Tortoise Team Up to Offer Grocers a Robot Delivery Option

Self Point and Tortoise announced today that they have partnered up to make same-day robot delivery available to local grocers.

Self Point makes digital commerce software that allows grocery retailers to build their own websites that integrate point of sale, inventory management and order fulfillment. Tortoise makes a teleoperated electric cart built for transporting heavy loads like groceries. With the Tortoise integration, Self Point’s grocery customers can add robots as a delivery option on orders.

You can check out a video of the Tortoise in operation here:

Tortoise Cart TikTok

Tortoise sets itself apart from other players in the last mile robotic delivery space such as Starship, Refraction and Nuro in a couple of ways. First Tortoise is proudly not autonomous. All Tortoise robots are teleoperated remotely by human drivers. By taking this approach, Tortoise believes it can get to market faster by avoiding some of the hesitations some local governments have with the safety self-driving robots on city sidewalks.

Tortoise is also not positioning itself as an on-demand delivery service. Tortoise is not meant to get you groceries in under a half hour. It’s meant to be scheduled ahead of time. Though it does appear that with Self Point, Tortoise robots will be available same day.

The Self Point + Tortoise partnership is certainly coming at the right time. Earlier this year, the pandemic pushed online grocery shopping sales, and by extension grocery delivery, to record-shattering new heights. Though those numbers have come down in recent months, grocery e-commerce is expected to represent 21.5 percent of total grocery by 2025.

As such we’ll see more grocers going online and needing more options for order fulfillment. Walmart has been doing automated grocery deliveries with Nuro in Houston, TX. Refraction has been doing grocery delivery in Ann Arbor, MI, and in Modesto, CA. And Save Mart is using a fleet of 30 Starship robots to make deliveries.

The robotic delivery market is definitely heating up, and it’s not to hard to imagine through deals like the one with Self Point, Tortoise could arrive in a bunch of neighborhoods rather quickly.

Nuro Raises $500M for its Autonomous Delivery Vehicles

Nuro announced today that it has raised a $500 million Series C round of funding. The round was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from new investors that include Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Baillie Gifford, as well as participation from existing investors SoftBank Vision Fund 1 and Greylock. This brings the total amount raised by Nuro to $1.5 billion.

Nuro makes pod-like, self-driving, low-speed cargo delivery vehicles. Nuro’s R2 vehicle is roughly half the size of a regular car, is autonomous (there is literally no place for a driver to sit) and travels at 25 mph.

But equally as important as its technology is Nuro’s work around getting regulatory approvals for deliveries. Self-driving vehicles are new, and all levels of government are coming to grips with how to regulate the concept to ensure safety on public streets. In February of this year, Nuro got approvals from the federal government to drive on public roads. This was followed up in April when the state of California gave Nuro the green light to run on its public roads.

Nuro has also done a number of tests over the past couple of years, delivering food for Kroger and Walmart as well as Domino’s.

At the end of October, Nuro revealed that it had been running fully autonomous tests, meaning no drivers and no chase cars, successfully over the previous few months in Houston, TX, Phoenix, AZ and Mountain View, CA. You can see a video of the R2 in action here:

Nuro’s technology is certainly coming to market at the right time. The global pandemic has more people staying at home and thereby ordering more restaurant meals and groceries for delivery. Nuro’s vehicle can carry a full load of groceries directly to a customer’s curbside around the clock. The autonomous nature of the Nuro also means that delivery is contactless, an important feature as people look to reduce human-to-human contact in order to stem the transmission of the virus.

Nuro isn’t alone in the autonomous last-mile delivery space. Other players range from the small cooler-sized robots of Starship to the larger three-wheeled REV-1 from Refraction to the cargo vans of Udelv.

In other words, autonomous delivery is coming, and Nuro now has more money to assert its place when it arrives.

Woowa Delivery Robots to Access Buildings and Ride Elevators Next Year

If you want to know what the future of robot delivery looks like, then take a look at what Woowa Brothers is doing in Korea. The Aju Business Daily has a story up today about how Woowa is creating new partnerships that will allow its robots to pass through a building’s security as well as take an elevator to travel between floors.

In August of this year, Woowa’s “Dilly” robots started making limited food deliveries to a multipurpose housing complex in Gwanggyo, Suwon city. But in this scenario, when it arrives, the robot waits at the entrance of the complex and the resident who placed the order must come down to retrieve their items.

As Aju reports, Woowa has partnered with networking platform developer HDC I-Controls and Hyundai Elevator to make a Dilly’s delivery more direct. With HDC I-Controls, Woowa’s robot will be able to automatically get through a front door’s security system and enter the building. Once inside, the connection with Hyundai Elevator will allow the robot to automatically travel in between floors of a building. This functionality is expected to roll out next year.

While Aju didn’t mention how the robots navigate to a recipient’s front door, that seems doable either though GPS on a user’s phone or QR codes placed on doors.

On it’s face, this is a really cool idea. Not only could robots enter a building and take the elevator on its own, but food orders in the same building could be clustered so robots could make multiple deliveries with one trip.

But the bigger reason we’re highlighting this story is that it’s another example of automated systems starting to daisy chain with one another. We talked about this during our food robotics panel at our Smart Kitchen Summit last month. In that talk, we outlined scenarios where something like a Picnic robot makes a pizza, a Bear Robotics Servi bot brings that pizza out to a delivery bot like Kiwi, which the brings it out directly to a person.

In Woowa’s case, the connections are more software related, but it’s still all about bringing more automation to the meal journey. You could see similar functionality coming to the U.S., especially at college dorms and apartment buildings. This type of automated travel path could also spur more delivery cubbies like Minnow’s for buildings without an elevator. A robot could place the order inside a temperature controlled locker for the person to pick up when they are ready.

The point is that we are just scratching the surface of what robotic meal delivery is capable of. These types of interplay between automated services will only increase making our robot-powered future seem not that far off.

Kiwibot will Pick up and Deliver Pizza from Piestro’s Robot Vending Machine

Human-free, contactless delivery is going next-level, thanks to a new partnership announced today between Piestro and Kiwibot.

In a word, this new deal is all about robots. Piestro makes a robot-powered pizza making vending machine , and Kiwibot makes little rover-style food delivery robots. As Piestros come to market, they will feature an integrated mechanism that allows Kiwibots to pluck those pizzas from the machine and cart them directly to your door.

The program isn’t live yet, and there isn’t a specific timetable for when it will happen. Piestro just successfully closed one equity crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $1 million, and is launching a new one with the hopes of raising $5 million more.

But when Piestros do come to market, those living in a Piestro/Kiwibot market will be able to order a pizza from the comfort of your couch through an app, and the Kiwibot will retrieve it and bring it to you. The exact process/app through which you order depends on if the Piestro is one owned and operated by the company, or if it is one that’s branded and licensed by a third-party.

Given the global pandemic, the desire for contactless food delivery is accelerating technologies that power both robotic vending machines and robot delivery services. Not only can robots work around the clock, they also remove a vector of human-to-human transmission. The Piestro/Kiwibot deal takes this concept even further by having a robot interact with the machine so there is no human in the transaction.

The ability to get items from vending machines was a feature that Kiwibot added last year, though being able to hold a boxed 12-inch pizza requires more space than picking up a Snickers bar. I spoke with Massimo de Marco, Piestro CEO by phone this week, who explained that Piestro is working with Kiwibot on a new version of its robot that can carry pizzas.

As noted, there wasn’t any indication of when or where Piestros will be hitting the streets. And even though Piestro and Kiwibot are the first to announce such a daisy chain of robot delivery, you can bet that similar deals will soon follow.

Starship Robots Now Delivering Groceries for Save Mart in Modesto, CA

Save Mart announced today that it it is now using Starship’s sidewalk robots for grocery delivery in Modesto, CA. This is the first grocery partnership for Starship in the U.S.

In a press release sent to The Spoon, Starship said its robots can each carry up to 20 pounds of groceries, or roughly three shopping bags, and can travel up to four miles round trip. Save Mart customers interested in using the service will order groceries directly from the Starship app.

While this is the first U.S. grocery partnership for Starship, the company has been doing robotic grocery delivery in the U.K. for a while now. Here in the U.S., Starship is mostly known for its college campus food delivery, and has lined up a number of partnerships with higher-education institutions including George Mason University, University of Pittsburgh and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

But the COVID-19 pandemic caused many schools to shift from in-person to online learning, reducing the need for campus food delivery. Though Starship robots are still active on campuses like the University of Houston and Bowling Green, the company has been expanding outside of schools. Starship added general restaurant delivery to cities like Tempe, AZ, Frisco, TX and Chevy Chase, VA.

While the pandemic may have dimmed Starship’s college go-to market strategy, COVID has spurred an interest in the type of contactless delivery robots brings. Robots don’t get sick, and they remove a vector of human-to-human transmission of the virus. We’ve seen accelerated activity from other players in the robot delivery space like Refraction in Ann Arbor, MI and Kiwibot in San Jose, CA and Denver, CO.

There are still a couple of details we don’t know about Save Mart’s robot delivery program. We’ve reached out to Starship to find out how many robots the store will have in service as well as any delivery fees associated with robot grocery delivery there. UPDATE: A Starship rep told us there 30 robots being used and delivery fees vary based on distance.

It’s a safe bet, however, that given how the pandemic continues its steady presence in this country, we’ll be seeing more grocery partnerships for Starship take off in the coming months.

Updated: Kiwibot Partners with Sodexo to Roll Out Delivery Robots at the University of Denver

UPDATE: Some details of this story changed after we published this story:

  • The service is now launching in October. 
  • The delivery fee will start at $2.50, or it will be free with a monthly subscription.
  • Delivery will be available from a total of three restaurants.

Original post follows:

Kiwibot announced today that it has partnered with foodservice company Sodexo to bring robot food delivery to students, faculty and staff at the University of Denver.

Starting today, a fleet of 15 Kiwibots will be available to deliver food from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8 a.m and 6 p.m., with deliveries costing a flat $2.50 per order. Delivery will start with one campus restaurant before expanding to four more food options by mid-October. Kiwibot is also working with the city of Denver to enable off-campus deliveries at some point in October, as well.

There are a few things worth noting about this deal. First, this is Kiwi’s second bite at the apple when it comes to college delivery. Last year, the company delivered to UC Berkeley and had big plans to expand to a number of different schools across the U.S. Those plans never came to fruition, however and were abandoned. One reason that growth might not have happened last year was that Kiwibot was going through student groups, and not partnering with a school’s administration.

This time around, Kiwibot has partnered with Sodexo, a huge company that provides foodservice to colleges across the U.S. This partnership brings with it more legitimacy for Kiwibot, and also provides an entrée, so to speak, with college administrations and restaurants at potential campuses.

That Kiwibot has partnered with Sodexo is in itself interesting because Sodexo has an existing partnership with Kiwi rival, Starship, for robot deliveries on various colleges like George Mason University. The difference, however, is that Starship’s program requires users to download the Starship app. Kiwibot’s solution is more of a B2B play, and will integrate with a food ordering app from Sodexo. So it could provide Kiwibot with direct access to a greater number of Sodexo-run properties, should the partnership grow.

Kiwibot have been on a bit of a, err, roll lately. In July the company launched a restaurant delivery program in the city of San Jose, CA. Kiwibot is also in the middle of an equity crowdfunding campaign, which aims to raise $1 million.

Kiwibot Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign for its Deliver Robot Service

Kiwibot, which makes rover delivery robots, officially announced its equity crowdfunding campaign today, with the goal of raising a little more than $1 million via Wefunder.

As of this writing, the company had raised more than $150,000 of that goal (the company raised $148,000 before officially launching). Those interested, can invest a minimum of $100 in the company. (I’m not a financial advisor, all investments have associated risks, caveat emptor, and all that.)

Kiwibot’s financing move comes just weeks after the company rolled out its delivery robots on the streets of San Jose, CA. The company partnered with the City of San Jose, integrating with its municipal software systems to help better manage the fleet of robots and alleviate any hiccups that might occur (like a bot getting stuck on a street corner or something).

Indeed, Kiwibot lists regulatory hurdles as a risk for potential investors, saying:

Due to the actions of some of our competitors, delivery bots have proved controversial in some regulatory environments with some cities, like San Francisco, putting out laws that make it difficult for us to deploy. If this became widespread we would have trouble going to market.

As part of its filings on the WeFunder site, Kiwibot also published its finanials. The company says it generated more than $279,302 in 2019, with losses of -$2,621,693 during that year. Kiwibot says it has $232,562 in cash. According to Crunchbase, Kiwibot has previously raised $3.5 million in funding.

Equity crowdfunding has become a popular option for robotics companies. Miso Robotics, Small Robot and Piestro are all robotics companies that have run equity crowdfunding campaigns this year (both Small Robot and Piestro have met their goals).

Kiwibot’s timing with equity crowdfunding could be fortuitous. Delivery robots like Kiwi’s could be playing more of starring role in how people get their meals as restaurants and consumers look to reduce human-to-human contact. Robots don’t get sick and don’t cough all over your food.

The question now is whether Kiwi’s funding case is compelling enough for the crowd to deliver.

Delivery ‘Bots from Starship and Postmates Spotted in the Wild on Both Coasts

We’ve been covering the acceleration of robots being rolled out for contactless food deliveries in different cities across the country. As these li’l rover ‘bots become more public, the public is catching their first glimpse of, and shooting video of, our food delivery future.

Starship recently started making restaurant and grocery deliveries in Chevy Chase, VA. That’s where Jake Tapper, host of CNN’s State of the Union caught not one but two Starship robots scurrying about in the rain and posted a video of them to Twitter.

Tapper wrote “I assume for food delivery? Still a bit @blackmirror,” which struck us as a bit odd. Black Mirror is the sci-fi anthology TV series that shows the dark side of our reliance/addiction to technology. But Tapper seems to be ignoring the fact that we are already living in the darkest timeline where human-to-human contact is fraught with anxiety and potentially danger, and technology like autonomous robots can actually be useful and could save lives.

As a reminder for Mr. Tapper, robots don’t get sick, won’t inadvertently cough on your broccoli and can help get food to people who may not be able to otherwise leave home. Not everything about robots is perfect, obviously. Robot companies like Starship are charging restaurants big commissions that might be unsustainable, and there are always are big, societal questions about automation and the cost of human jobs. But right now, we should absolutely be experimenting with more self-driving deliveries.

Over the West Coast, friend of The Spoon, Mike R., saw the Postmates Serve robot cruising down a Los Angeles city street. With its lit up eyes and bright color, the cheery robot certainly seemed to fit in with sunny California vibe. An “On Delivery” message displayed on its screen to let passers by know it was on a job as it quietly rolled on its own down the sidewalk (followed, appropriately enough, by someone on a scooter wearing a facemask).

Postmates Serve Robot Out on Delivery

For those living in the middle of the country, fret not. Self-driving delivery robots won’t be relegated to the coasts. Up in Ann Arbor, MI, Refraction’s REV-1 is making lunch and grocery deliveries. And Starship is eyeing Frisco, TX among the next cities to get its robot delivery service.

If you see robots running around your town, please shoot a picture or a video and share it with us!

Starship Angling to Make its Robot Food Deliveries in Frisco, TX. Notice the Pattern?

Starship’s small, autonomous food delivery robots could soon be rolling around Frisco, TX. The Community Impact Newspaper in Frisco reports that earlier this week Starship pitched its robotic plans to the town’s city council.

If adopted, Starship’s robots would be making deliveries from local restaurants and grocery stores in that area. More importantly during this COVID-19 pandemic, those deliveries would be done without human-to-human contact.

Community Impact writes that the city council is still working through details with Starship, but it looks like the program will proceed, with a launch announcement expected in the next few weeks.

The expansion into Frisco would follow Starship’s recent deployments to other cities such as Fairfax, VA and Tempe, AZ. One thing Frisco, Fairfax and Tempe all have in common is that they are (relatively) close to a college or university that Starship had previously been serving (University of Texas at Dallas, George Mason University and Northern Arizona University, respectively).

A Starship rep told Community Impact: “With the pandemic, a lot of campuses have emptied out of students. So we have accelerated our long-term plans, which is to offer neighborhood deliveries.”

It would make sense that Starship would take those college robots and let them loose in nearby neighborhoods to make deliveries to the general public. If that logic holds true, we can probably expect to see Starship robots making deliveries in towns near Houston, TX; Madison, WI, Pittsburgh, PA; and West Lafayette, IN.

Robots could have greater appeal as a delivery mechanism given heightened fears people now have of viral transmissions. Robots don’t get sick and can be easily sanitized. This, in combination with working with smaller towns, could make local governments more willing to put autonomous vehicles on their sidewalks.

Prior to the pandemic, cities and states were cautious about allowing robots to run about on public streets and sidewalks. But shelter in place orders across the country have spurred demand for home delivery of food and groceries. Robots, with their ability to run around the clock, can help meet that demand.

We’re already seeing more robots on public streets. In Ann Arbor, MI, Refraction’s REV-1 is making restaurant and grocery deliveries. And in California, Nuro has been given the go ahead to test its autonomous delivery vehicle on public roads.

One thing that could hold robot delivery back, however, is the commission fees it is charging. We learned recently that Starship can charge almost as much as a human-powered third-party delivery service. This seems to defeat the labor cost savings robots are supposed to bring, and not at all helpful to restaurants that are struggling to stay in business. But as Starship pointed out, they are working on an accelerated timeline, and hopefully the company will soon bring more equity to its delivery.

If you’re in one of these towns where robots can bring you food, drop us a line and let us know how it went, and if you’d use them again!