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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Valqari

Valqari Launching Single-Family Drone Mailboxes Later this Year, Targeting $1,500 Price Point

Valqari is looking to launch a retail, single-family version of its drone delivery smart locker later this year, and is working to get the cost of it below $1,500. Valqari Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Walsh laid out the company’s plans during his presentation on StartEngine Shark Pitch with Kevin O’Leary (Mr. Wonderful of Shark Tank) today.

Valqari makes drop-off lockers for drone delivery. These lockers are installed in a fixed location, and drones carrying food or packages land on top of them. The food or package is shuttled from the drone to a designated locker where a customer or delivery person retrieves them via a mobile app.

Walsh spoke at our ArticulATE food robotics conference back in May. While that conversation focused mainly on B2B operations (i.e., restaurants flying meals to Valqari lockers for a third-party delivery person to pick up), he did mention that consumer versions were on the company’s roadmap.

During his pitch, O’Leary asked Walsh mainly about Valqari’s patents and the B2B applications and costs for the service, and the topic of food delivery was not raised in their conversation. Walsh said that there will be a number of payment options (lease versus buy), but O’Leary pressed for actual numbers. Walsh said that the cost would be between $32,000 and $35,000 for the hardware plus a $300/month subscription for business use. Walsh then said that Valqari will launch a single-family version of its locker later this year with the company “working” to bring the cost for that down below $1,500 with an undisclosed monthly subscription. Walsh also said that Valqari revenues are projected to be $12 million in 2022.

The idea of having a smart drone delivery platform in your front yard is enticing. Drone delivery of food, in particular makes a lot of sense when you consider how fast a hot meal can arrive at your door. But even if a retail version of Valqari’s lockers were available later this year in the U.S., drone delivery is still very new and not available everywhere. Big retailers like Kroger and Walmart are already running pilot programs, but laws and regulations around drone delivery are still being worked out. So before you plunk down $1,500, make sure that fancy drone mailbox won’t just sit unused at the end of your driveway.

Dragontail Systems Partners with Valqari to Deploy Dropboxes for Drone Delivery

Restaurant tech company Dragontail Systems announced last Friday that it has partnered with Chicago-based drone logistics company Valqari to use that company’s automated drone delivery stations.

Valqari’s makes the Drone Delivery Station, which is kind of like an automat for drone-delivered food drop-offs. The Station has a series of locked cubbies, on top of which a drone carrying the food either lands or lowers a tethered package. Once dropped off, the Station’s elevator system lowers the food and places it into a secured cubby. A delivery driver (or even a customer) then receives a notification that the food has arrived and they can unlock the designated cubby to carry the order over the last mile to its final destination.

Smart Drone Delivery Mailbox by Valqari

This news comes a little more than a month after Tel Aviv-based Dragontail, which uses AI to track restaurant order management and fulfillment, announced that it had partnered with Pizza Hut in Israel to do drone delivery of pizzas. Dragontail did not specify where Valqari’s systems would be implemented. (UPDATE: Dragontail said that it will be deployed in the U.S.)

Dragontail’s plan is to do a hub-and-spoke model of drone delivery, meaning that instead of flying directly to people’s houses, the drones will fly from a restaurant to a designated drop-off area. This simplified, narrow approach will help minimize regulatory issues that come with flying drones. Because there will be limited flight paths to and from two fixed points, instead of drones flying deep into residential areas, there isn’t as much government approval needed.

Partnering with Valqari also gives Dragontail the means to safely drop off deliveries without needing a human driver to get near the drone. The locker can also keep food secured should a driver be late for food pickup.

While regulatory issues around drone delivery are being clarified (at least here in the U.S.), and a number of players like Flytrex and Deuce Drone are starting to make deliveries domestically, there is still a long way to go before it can become mainstream.

In the meantime, however, it’s easy to see how a halo of logistical services around drones like that of Valqari’s will rise up to make it easier for drone delivery to come to market.