British robotics startup Starship Technologies will roll its self-driving parcel-delivery robots out to 100 university campuses in the next 24 months, thanks to a $40 million venture capital round it unveiled yesterday.
The Series A funding was led by Morpheus Ventures with participation from prior investors including Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, MetaPlanet Holdings, and others, as well as new investors including TDK Ventures, Qu Ventures, and others. It brings Starship's total backing to $85 million.
Starship had previously raised a $17.2 million venture capital injection in 2017 to expand its U.S. trials. The company, which recently completed its first 100,000 commercial deliveries, said it would now use the new funding to rapidly expand its services to more university campuses.
Students can already use the firm's autonomous vehicles, which resemble six-wheeled, electric picnic coolers, at the University of Pittsburgh. The next site will be Indiana's Purdue University, where the bots are scheduled to begin making deliveries on Sept. 9.
"This new investment will see Starship expand onto more campuses as we head towards a goal of offering our services to over one million students," Starship Technologies CEO Lex Bayer said in a release. "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."
