Starship Technologies, San Francisco, closed $40 million in Series A funding, and announced plans to expand its service to 100 university campuses in the next 24 months.  

With the closing of this Series A funding round, Starship raised a total of $85 million. The company will use the new funding to rapidly expand services to more university campuses. The round was led by Morpheus Ventures, Los Angeles, with participation from prior investors, including Shasta Ventures, Menlo Park, Calif.; Matrix Partners, San Francisco; MetaPlanet Holdings, Estonia, as well as new investors, including TDK Ventures, San Jose, Calif.; Qu Ventures, Bethesda, Md., and more. 

Starship Technologies’ zero-emission robots completed 100,000 autonomous deliveries, making it what is dubbed to be the first company to complete 100,000 commercial deliveries.

Starship, which provides restaurant and grocery deliveries worldwide, delivered over 6,000 pizzas, 7,000 gallons of milk, 9,000 sushi rolls, 15,000 bananas and more.  

“We’ve evaluated the autonomous tech market segment around the world, and Starship is miles ahead of others in bringing advanced technology valued by real paying customers,” says Nicolas Sauvage, managing director of TDK Ventures. “Starship’s machine learning, computer vision and sensor fusion is the most advanced we’ve seen in autonomous robotic delivery. We look forward to contributing to the success of Starship in this important and emerging space.”

 “This new investment will see Starship expand onto more campuses as we head toward a goal of offering our service to over 1 million students,” adds Lex Bayer, chief executive officer of Starship Technologies. “An entire generation of university students are growing up in a world where they expect to receive a delivery from a robot after a few taps on their smartphone. The reception to our service both on campuses and in neighborhoods has been phenomenal. Our customers appreciate how we make their lives easier and give them back the gift of time.”

Starship partnered with Sodexo, Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., to roll out robot delivery to university campuses. The robots use a combination of sophisticated sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles.  

Starship also delivers groceries and packages in neighborhoods and a range of items on corporate campuses around the globe.