DEPLOYDatabase

Company

Zipline

American autonomous drone-delivery company (South San Francisco, founded 2014 by Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oksenhorn, and Will Hetzler).

Founded
2014
HQ
South San Francisco, California, USA
Status
private

The verified answer

As of Aug 2026, DEPLOY verifies Zipline: 3 models, 18 deployments across 15 regions, $600.0M raised, 1 active incident. 30 sources back the record.

Regulatory status2 FAA actions

Zipline holds 2 FAA actions, per the DEPLOY registry.

See all 2 filings

CategoryDrones

Appears inLogistics robots/Delivery drones

Overview

American autonomous drone-delivery company (South San Francisco, founded 2014 by Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oksenhorn, and Will Hetzler). Began with medical delivery in Rwanda and Ghana and expanded to US commercial and healthcare delivery; surpassed 2 million commercial deliveries and raised over $600M in January 2026 at a $7.6B valuation. Operates under FAA Part 135 air-carrier certification.

Verified record

Verified deployments
18 deployments on file
Active incidents
1 incident on file

Valuation of record

DEPLOY VERIFIED
$7.6B (reported, approximate)as of Mar 2026

Priced roundSeries H post-money

See the full valuations ranking →

Key facts

Founded

2014, South San Francisco, California

Product

Zipline P2 and P3 autonomous delivery drones; fixed-wing with tethered package release; delivers to porch or locker

Countries

Rwanda (2016), Ghana (2019), Nigeria, Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire, Japan, US (North Carolina, Utah, Arkansas)

Deliveries

2M+ commercial deliveries (Jan 2026 milestone); 40+ million vaccine doses; largest autonomous drone delivery network globally

Leadership

Okeoma Morant (COO), Ezra Czyzyk (VP Engineering)

Patents

2 USPTO patents (tethered delivery, sense-and-avoid) under Zipline assignee

Regulatory

FAA Part 135 air carrier certificate (2022, first for drone delivery); beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) approvals

Houston drone nest

Drone delivery nest site operational in Houston, TX (2026)

Phoenix drone nest

Drone delivery nest site operational in Phoenix, AZ (2026)

P2 autonomous docking

Platform 2 drones dock and recharge autonomously — 155-mile roundtrip range per charge

Data & sources

Press releases

3

News coverage

7

Patent documents

18

Web sources

2

30 sources backing this record.View all →

Zipline on the deployment map

View the global map

18 verified deployments across 15 regions, newest verified Jan 2026. Explore where Zipline's robots are operating, by place and type.

Free to use on your site, with a link back to DEPLOY.

View the full Zipline deployment record →

Free to use on your site, with a link back to DEPLOY.

Relationships

Claims ledger

Public, dated claims by Zipline, each tracked against the evidence. Status is a DEPLOY assessment from primary sources: verified means an independent source confirms it; contradicted means one refutes it; open means the outcome is not yet determinable. Every entry keeps its verbatim quote and source so you can check the call yourself.

Claim Integrity: 67% (2 of 3 resolved claims verified; 4 tracked)
  • OpenTimeline · claimed 2026-01-01 · deadline 2026-12-31
    Four states by end of year

    Zipline is expanding to Texas (Wonder partnership). BayCare partnership covers Florida. Operating in multiple states already. "Four states" may already be met or close to met. https://dronelife.com/2026/06/30/restaurant-drone-delivery-wonder-zipline-texas/

  • VerifiedCapability · claimed 2026-01-01
    The largest commercial autonomous system on earth isn't a robotaxi fleet — it's Zipline, which has flown 140 million autonomous miles

    130M+ autonomous miles confirmed on Zipline fact sheet. 2M+ commercial deliveries. This claim is verified — Zipline is the largest commercial autonomous delivery system by miles flown. https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet

  • VerifiedSafety · claimed 2026-01-01
    Zipline has flown more than 130 million autonomous miles, operates on multiple continents, and safely makes a delivery every 30 seconds

    Zipline's own fact sheet, consistent with Wikipedia (2M+ deliveries, 120M+ miles). Multi-continent operations confirmed (Rwanda, Ghana, US, expanding). One delivery every 30 seconds = ~1M deliveries/year rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipline_(drone_delivery_company)

  • Partly trueCapacity · claimed 2024-04-19 · deadline 2026-10-19
    Two and a half years from now we need to be doing a million deliveries a day

    Zipline hit 1M total deliveries in April 2024 (cumulative, not daily). As of January 2026, 2M+ cumulative deliveries. A delivery every 30 seconds = ~2,880/day. The 1M/day target is far from current rate. Zipline is expanding rapidly (BayCare, Wonder, Texas) but 1M/day by October 2026 is highly ambitious. https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet

Disagree with a status? Zipline can submit a correction with evidence and we log the response on the record. Methodology and the full industry ledger live at /stats/claim-integrity.

Explainers

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

What is an autonomous drone?
An autonomous drone is an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) whose flight is directed by onboard AI + autonomy stack rather than continuous human remote-piloting. Per DEPLOY's framework, the cohort splits across three classes with distinct verification anchors: new-defense (Anduril Roadrunner/Fury/Ghost/Bolt + Helsing HX-2/HF-1 + Shield AI V-BAT + Quantum Systems + Neros); legacy-prime (General Atomics MQ-9 lifecycle); commercial-civilian (Skydio + Zipline + Wing + Matternet + Brinc + Wingcopter + XAG + Percepto + Flytrex). Gating events split by class: BVLOS regulatory clearance for commercial; DoD contracts + fielded systems for defense. Editorial discipline: remotely-piloted-vs-autonomous honesty matters; MQ-9 + TB2 + Neros Archer are recorded as remotely-piloted, not autonomous. The framework resists 'drone = AI' inflation.Read the full explainer →

Current leadership (4)

  • Keenan Wyrobek Co-Founder & Head of Product/Engineering, Co-founder & CTO / Head of Product & Engineering, Co-Founder, CTO & Product Architectsecondary-verified
  • Keller Rinaudo Cliffton Co-founder & CEOsecondary-verified
  • Ezra Czyzyk executivesince 2020-01-01secondary-verified
  • Okeoma Morant executivesince 2019-01-01secondary-verified

Founders (5)

See all founders across the registry →

Former / Previously (2)

Media (1)

Company-anchored media. Official assets the company has published at the company level, distinct from model-anchored media that lives on individual product pages.

Safety record

1 incident on record. Most recent: Jul 2019.

Severity not classified
1

Most recent: Jul 2019

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 →

Incidents affecting Zipline (1)

Includes incidents linked directly to this company, to its models, or to deployments of its models or under its operation. Retracted incidents are excluded from this view but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Operator customers (1)

Brains developed (1)

Recent coverage

Zipline in third-party press

Peer companies