Starship Announces Profitability, Bolt Partnership

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Bolt Turns to Starship for Delivery Bots

Starship Technologies and Bolt announced a new partnership, as the two European food delivery players teamed up as their battle with the likes of Uber and Serve gets increasingly heated. With both companies founded in Estonia, this partnership seems like a no-brainer, especially as Bolt grows its restaurant and grocery delivery ambitions.

A spokesperson for Starship shared additional details on the launch, including an important milestone: the company is now profitable in select markets.

OttOmate: Which cities will this partnership first go live in?

Starship: Initially, the partnership will likely launch in Tallinn, Estonia which is where both companies were founded. The partnership will expand well beyond that, but the other cities haven’t yet been determined. There is a lot of potential for autonomous delivery and now that we’ve reached 5 million commercial, autonomous deliveries, we have seen that the desire for this type of delivery is not going away.

O: How many robots will be deployed as part of the partnership?

S: Thousands of robots will be part of this partnership.

O: Can you share any details on the pricing / economics, from Starship, Bolt, the restaurant, or the user's side?

S: Starship has been profitable in select service areas for the past year and that list continues to grow. As our fleet expands and our robots become more efficient, our costs decline and have been declining 50% per year. We are now cheaper than human delivery and that is an attractive proposition to restaurants and our business partners such as Bolt and Grubhub who can sometimes struggle to find enough people to do that job.

O: How will Bolt app users know if they are getting a robot-powered delivery, and is that something they can opt in or out of?

S: More details will be released soon.

O: Will this cover restaurant and grocery delivery?

S: More details will be released soon.

Evidently the details of the partnership are still being worked out, but stay tuned to OttOmate and we’ll keep you updated.