At least some investors and companies are betting that robots are the future of food and product deliveries.
The latest to benefit from that thinking is Serve Robotics Inc., which is designing robots that can navigate sidewalks and crosswalks to deliver food and other items to people's doorsteps. The Redwood City startup announced Tuesday it's raised $13 million in a seed round from investors including Uber Technologies Inc., Delivery Hero-backed DX Ventures, Wavemaker Partners and 7 Ventures, the venture capital arm of 7-Eleven Inc.
Serve plans to use the latest funding to expand its robot fleet and the geographic areas it serves, according to a press release. Founded in 2017 by Postmates, which spun it off earlier this year, the company has already made tens of thousands of deliveries in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Uber's investment follows a previously announced partnership between the Serve and Uber's Uber Eats division to offer robotic food delivery in Los Angeles starting next year.
Here's more on Serve's deal the other Bay Area seed round from this past week:
Serve Robotics Inc., Redwood City, $13 million: Uber Technologies Inc., Delivery Hero-backed DX Ventures, Wavemaker Partners and 7-Eleven Inc.'s 7 Ventures all invested in the round for this developer of a sidewalk delivery robot.
Forum Mobility Inc., San Francisco, $7.5 million: Obvious Ventures and Homecoming Capital co-led the round for this developer of a service to help operators of heavy-duty logistical trucks transition to electric-powered vehicles. Edison International and Overture VC also participated.
Wispr AI Inc., San Francisco, $4.6 million: New Enterprise Associates and 8VC co-led the round for this developer of a thought-powered computer interface. CTRL-Labs Chief Strategy Officer Josh Duyan, Iota Biosciences Co-CEO Jose Carmena, Warby Parker CEO Dave Gilboa, Stanford Professor Chris Manning, Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher, Nesos Chief Technology Officer Vivek Sharma and Whoop CEO Will Ahmed also invested.
Concept Den Ltd. (dba SendOwl), San Francisco, $4.5 million: Defy.vc invested in this developer of a payment service for digital goods. Stripe Inc. also invested.
Markai Inc., Palo Alto, $4 million: Pear VC led the round for this aggregator of Asian e-commerce brands.
Gray.Life Inc. (dba Wave), Los Altos, $2 million: Hannah Grey VC led the round for this provider of emotional health care services. Tribe Capital, k50 Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group/Basecamp, Conscience VC, and Verissimo Ventures also invested.
