Uber expands robotic delivery with new global partnership
Uber Technologies is rolling out autonomous sidewalk robot delivery across multiple markets.
The Uber Eats on-demand delivery subsidiary of Uber is collaborating with London-based autonomous delivery network Starship to leverage its sidewalk delivery robots, starting with the U.K. in December 2025. This will be followed by deployments across multiple European countries in 2026, with U.S. expansion planned for 2027.
Starship's AI-equipped robots will have the capability to complete deliveries in under 30 minutes for distances of up to two miles. The company partners with on-demand delivery platform Grubhub to support robotic delivery at select U.S. college campuses, and also provides robotic deliveries for retailers including Save Mart in the U.S. and Domino’s in Germany and the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, Uber has been actively engaging in robotic delivery for years, starting with its 2022 launch of delivery using autonomous robots from Serve Robotics, which began as the robotics division of Postmates, a company acquired by Uber in July 2020. Serve was spun off as an independent company in February 2021, with Uber as an investor.
In addition, Uber offers deliveries via emissions-free Coco Robotics sidewalk robots from a variety of retailers, most recently including two Chicago Shake Shack locations.
Uber Eats also has an automated delivery partnership with self-driving robot provider Cartken in the Miami and Fairfax, Virginia markets. In September 2022, Uber teamed up with autonomous vehicle manufacturer Nuro to let Uber Eats consumers order meals and goods delivered by Nuro’s zero-occupant autonomous delivery vehicles, which run on public roads and are built specifically to carry food and other goods.
And in May 2022, the company announced it was conducting two separate pilots of two different autonomous delivery vehicles in the Los Angeles area, including Motional all-electric, self-driving Ioniq 5 “robotaxis” as well as Serve Robotics delivery robots.
[READ MORE: Uber launches two autonomous delivery pilots]
"Autonomous delivery is an exciting part of how we see the future of Uber Eats," said Sarfraz Maredia, global head of autonomous at Uber. "Together with Starship, we’re bringing this future to life across multiple continents, leveraging Uber’s global scale and Starship’s proven autonomy to deliver efficient and affordable experiences for consumers and merchants everywhere."
Uber Eats leverages Uber’s technology and logistics capabilities to partner with 825,000 retailers in more than 11,000 cities globally, with an average delivery time the company says is under 30 minutes.
