DEPLOYDatabase

Company

Refraction AI

Refraction AI was an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based last-mile delivery robot company founded in 2019 by University of Michigan researchers.

Track Refraction AI
Founded
2019
HQ
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Status
private (still operating; ~21 employees)

Appears inLogistics robots

Funding

$4.2M

Models

1

Overview

Refraction AI was an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based last-mile delivery robot company founded in 2019 by University of Michigan researchers. The company's REV-1 robots were battery-powered, five feet tall, traveling at 10-15 mph, and operated on streets and bike lanes for food and goods delivery. Refraction raised $4.2M in seed funding and partnered with Chick-fil-A for autonomous delivery pilots, but abruptly closed Ann Arbor operations due to funding challenges.

Verified record

Verified deployments
None on file
Active incidents
None on file

DEPLOY Intelligence

Market intelligence for physical AI

Analyst-grade signals, competitive tracking, and investment context across the global physical AI landscape. Launching 2026.

Key facts

Product

REV-1 (street delivery robot)

Status

Operations ceased (funding challenges)

Additional location

Austin, Texas, USA

Founders

University of Michigan professors

CEO

Luke Schneider

Seed funding

$4.2M

Data & sources

News coverage

1

Web sources

3

4 sources backing this record.View all →

Models (1)

View all models →

Current platform

REV-1

Refraction AI (founded 2017 in Ann Arbor, Michigan by University of Michigan professors Matthew Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan; about $4.2 million seed raised in 2021; now led by CEO Luke Schneider with teams in Ann Arbor and Austin, Texas) makes the REV-1, a distinctive three-wheeled delivery vehicle sized between a sidewalk bot and a car. The REV-1 travels up to 15 miles per hour with about a 280-pound payload and is designed for winter and snow and bicycle-courier-style operation, running primarily in the bike lane or road margin while able to use sidewalks where permitted, a regulatory regime between a sidewalk personal delivery device and a road autonomous vehicle. A critical current-state correction: the dispatch flagged a possible wind-down or acquisition, but Refraction is verified still operating through 2024 to 2026, with the Osage Venture Partners exited label being a venture-portfolio markdown rather than a confirmed acquisition or shutdown, and counter-evidence including a new CEO, an Austin office, Chick-fil-A as a marquee client, and an active 2026 company profile, so it is not tagged discontinued. The registry records it at pilot maturity, since it is a roughly 21-person company with a named client and multi-city presence but no independently verified scale figures. It runs a robots-as-a-service model where customers subscribe to dedicated brand-customizable robots. Any lifetime delivery count, fleet size, revenue, or live-market count is unverified, the claim that the REV-1 is discontinued in favor of a REF-1 is a likely misread of source language describing a second generation of the same design, and the precise nature of the Osage exit is unconfirmed.

sidewalkView model →

Refraction AI on the deployment map

Where Refraction AI's robots are verified operating. Explore the deployment map by place and type.

Explainers

Plain-language answers to the questions people ask about Refraction AI, from DEPLOY’s explainer library. Each is written in the language of the question and cross-checked against this registry.

  • What is a sidewalk delivery robot?

    A sidewalk delivery robot is a small autonomous wheeled vehicle that operates in the sidewalk regulatory regime (not roads) for last-mile delivery of food, packages, and small goods. Per DEPLOY's framework, the cohort enumerates as: Starship Technologies (canonical scaled commercial, multi-country, millions of deliveries) + Coco + Serve Robotics (NASDAQ SERV; Uber Eats partnership) + Kiwibot + Avride + Cartken (hardware-sale; ex-Google founders; Mitsubishi + Uber Eats + Melco ~100-Hauler order) + Ottonomy (RaaS-lease ~$999/mo) + Refraction AI + Delivers AI + (Amazon Scout discontinued Oct 6 2022 + FedEx Roxo paused 2022 + Tortoise shut down 2023 as wind-down record). Business model spectrum: hardware sale (Cartken) vs RaaS-lease (Ottonomy + Refraction) vs captive service (Starship + Delivers AI). State-by-state regulatory variation is the canonical operational gate. Wind-down record is honest editorial signal, not smoothed.

Current leadership (2)

Founders (2)

Former / Previously (1)

Safety record

No incidents on record for Refraction AI.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →

Recent coverage

Refraction AI in third-party press

Refraction AI raises $4.2M for delivery robots

Jan 1, 2020

Peer companies