- Serve’s delivery robots are expanding to new US cities this month.
- Grubhub joins DoorDash in putting Serve’s robots on the sidewalk.
- Uber fully divested its stake in the company it spun out.
More of those cute, yet sometimes annoying, delivery robots are heading to sidewalks across the United States through a partnership between Serve Robotics and Grubhub. This deal comes shortly after a previous partnership between Serve and Uber was ended.
Soon, Serve’s delivery robots will be available from more than 100 participating Grubhub merchants in Chicago and almost 200 in Los Angeles. In addition, they will also be introduced to Alexandria, Virginia, making food delivery a little bit easier.
Read: Hyundai’s Latest Robots May Be Eyeing Your Job
In addition to working with Grubhub at these new locations, Serve is deepening its ties with DoorDash, also launching its service in Washington, DC, and San Jose, California. Serve has also established its first microdepot in Miami, where the robots will be staged, charged, dispatched, and maintained at a single facility.
Serve Robotics was spun out of Uber more than five years ago and had enjoyed significant financial backing from the ride-hailing giant. However, Uber announced earlier this month that it had completely divested its stake in Serve as the company’s clashed on how to best deploy the robot delivery vehicles.
The Robot Takeover
Serve has also previewed a new product known as Beacon. It’s designed to sit on the countertops of restaurants, immediately alerting staff when a robot has arrived for pickup.
In addition to confirming it’ll now be easier for Grubhub and DoorDash users to have a hamburger or pizza delivered to their door, Serve also announced its next-generation hospital robot, dubbed Moxi, is being introduced to the Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in Chicago, Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Los Angeles, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The new robot can perceive and interpret its surroundings up to 15 times faster than to 10-time greater onboard compute power.
The company currently has more than 2,000 robots in operation across the United States and works with more than 4,000 restaurants.
