Robot model
Cartken Courier
Cartken (Oakland, California; founded 2019 by ex-Google engineers from the Bookbot project, led by CEO Christian Bersch; about $22.5 million raised from investors including Magna International, Shell Ventures, and Mitsubishi Electric) makes six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. Its Cartken Courier is the original sidewalk bot carrying about 44 pounds at 3 to 6 miles per hour, joined by the larger industrial Cartken Hauler with a 660-pound payload and an indoor Cartken Runner. It ran campus and food sidewalk delivery at scale, including a 41-robot fleet at the University of Arizona via Grubhub and Uber Eats service in Miami and Tokyo, but in July 2025 it pivoted its growth focus from last-mile food delivery to industrial robotics, with food delivery continuing but no longer expanding. The registry records it at commercial maturity with a finding that corrects the sector's captive-service premise: Cartken is not a classic captive operator, its legacy campus business was robots-as-a-service, and its forward business is industrial robot sales, anchored by a multi-million-dollar order from Melco, a Mitsubishi Electric Group company, for nearly 100 Cartken Hauler robots placed on June 25, 2025, an outright sale rather than a service, following a first industrial customer in Germany's ZF Lifetec in 2023. The frequently cited figure of more than 50,000 orders at the University of Arizona is company and BusinessWire PR, with Grubhub corroborating the program but not the count, and the current fleet size, total lifetime deliveries, whether the roughly 100 Haulers have actually been deployed rather than merely ordered, and whether the Miami service is still live in 2026 are not verified.
Cartken Courier is a sidewalk robot built by
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /models/cartken-courier.md
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/models/308e996f-c675-4088-a0c5-fee7b9f9c6b9
- Data documentation: /data
- Form factor
- sidewalk
- Maturity stage
- commercial
- Lifecycle
- active
- Deployments
- 0
- ID
308e996f-c675-4088-a0c5-fee7b9f9c6b9
Specs
- notes
- [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
- specs
- Cartken Courier (Model C): six-wheeled sidewalk delivery bot, ~44 lb / ~1.5 cu ft payload, 3-6 mph. Cartken Hauler: larger industrial model (2025), 660 lb / 300 kg payload. Cartken Runner: indoor. Founded 2019 (ex-Google 'Bookbot' engineers; CEO Christian Bersch); ~$22.5M raised (468 Capital, Magna International, Shell Ventures, Mitsubishi Electric).
- formFactor
- sidewalk (six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robot; + larger industrial variant)
Supply chain
No verified supply relationships on file. Supply-chain coverage is being added across the registry; check back as the seed populates this model’s suppliers.
Suppliers appear here when verified with at least two strong sources (maker-official / IR / regulatory / standards-body / verified tier-2). Sources are append-only; corrections add new sources rather than rewrite history.
Sources (4)
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/20/why-cartken-pivoted-its-focus-from-last-mile-delivery-to-industrial-robots/
- https://www.cartken.com/press-release/a-mitsubishi-electric-group-company-expands-partnership-with-cartken-and-orders-nearly-100-autonomous-cartken-hauler-robots-for-industrial-applications
- https://onsite.grubhub.com/blog/how-the-university-of-arizona-uses-grubhub-and-cartken-for-robot-delivery/
- https://www.cartken.com/press-release/cartken-announces-22-5m-in-aggregate-funding-to-advance-ai-based-technology-stack-enabling-autonomous-delivery-robots
Common questions
- What is Cartken Courier?
- Cartken (Oakland, California; founded 2019 by ex-Google engineers from the Bookbot project, led by CEO Christian Bersch; about $22.5 million raised from investors including Magna International, Shell Ventures, and Mitsubishi Electric) makes six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. Its Cartken Courier is the original sidewalk bot carrying about 44 pounds at 3 to 6 miles per hour, joined by the larger industrial Cartken Hauler with a 660-pound payload and an indoor Cartken Runner. It ran campus and food sidewalk delivery at scale, including a 41-robot fleet at the University of Arizona via Grubhub and Uber Eats service in Miami and Tokyo, but in July 2025 it pivoted its growth focus from last-mile food delivery to industrial robotics, with food delivery continuing but no longer expanding. The registry records it at commercial maturity with a finding that corrects the sector's captive-service premise: Cartken is not a classic captive operator, its legacy campus business was robots-as-a-service, and its forward business is industrial robot sales, anchored by a multi-million-dollar order from Melco, a Mitsubishi Electric Group company, for nearly 100 Cartken Hauler robots placed on June 25, 2025, an outright sale rather than a service, following a first industrial customer in Germany's ZF Lifetec in 2023. The frequently cited figure of more than 50,000 orders at the University of Arizona is company and BusinessWire PR, with Grubhub corroborating the program but not the count, and the current fleet size, total lifetime deliveries, whether the roughly 100 Haulers have actually been deployed rather than merely ordered, and whether the Miami service is still live in 2026 are not verified.
- Who makes Cartken Courier?
- Cartken Courier is made by Cartken, based in Oakland, California, USA, founded in 2019.
- Where is Cartken Courier deployed?
- No verified deployments of Cartken Courier are currently on the DEPLOY registry. DEPLOY records deployments only when verified at a named site with a primary source; absence may reflect pre-deployment, research, or manufacturer-internal use.
- What is Cartken Courier's maturity stage?
- Cartken Courier is at the commercial stage on the DEPLOY maturity ladder (research, prototype, pilot, commercial, production). Commercial stage means production-grade deployments are operating at named customer sites.