DEPLOYDatabase

Robot model

Starship Bot

Starship Bot is the six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robot of Starship Technologies, founded in 2014 by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla, who is also…

Form factor
sidewalk
Maturity
commercial
Lifecycle
active
Deployments
9

Appears inLogistics robots

Overview

Starship Bot is the six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robot of Starship Technologies, founded in 2014 by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla, who is also chief executive, and Janus Friis, with headquarters in San Francisco and engineering hubs in Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland. The robot carries an insulated cargo compartment and navigates sidewalks at low speed using multi-sensor fusion of cameras, radar, ultrasonics, and GPS, operating as an operator-supervised Level 4 system: it drives autonomously with remote human oversight and takeover available rather than being driverless, a distinction the registry preserves against Starship's own marketing of Level 4 autonomy without active human supervision. Starship runs a captive operator-supervised service model, operating its own fleet and selling the delivery backbone to apps, retailers, and campuses rather than selling robots to third parties, integrating with platforms such as Uber Eats, Just Eat, Bolt, Foodora, Grubhub, and Wolt. As of Starship's own April 2026 disclosure it had passed ten million cumulative autonomous deliveries with more than three thousand robots across more than three hundred service areas in eight countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, and the United States, with more than sixty-five US university campuses as its anchor segment; Denmark, sometimes listed in priors, is not among them. It remains privately held, having closed a fifty-million-dollar Series C led by Plural in October 2025 that brought cumulative funding above two hundred eighty million dollars, with no valuation disclosed by the company.

Verified vs. claimed

Maturity stage
commercial(Commercially deployed with revenue-generating operations.)
Verified deployments
9 deployments on file
Sources on file
7 sources, view all

Key facts

Operating speed

~4 mph (legacy spec)

Autonomy level

Operator-supervised Level 4 with remote human oversight/takeover available

Sensor suite

Cameras, radar, ultrasonics, GPS; lidar on some configs

Cumulative deliveries

10M+ cumulative autonomous deliveries (Apr 2026)

Fleet size

3,000+ robots

Specs

Notes

Founders / heritage: Founded 2014 by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla (co-founder + CEO) and Janus Friis. HQ San Francisco; engineering hubs Tallinn (Estonia) and Helsinki (Finland)., Business model: Captive operator-supervised delivery SERVICE: sells the autonomous delivery backbone to apps/retailers/campuses, not robots to third parties., Footprint (verified, Apr 2026): 8 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Czech Republic, United States. NOTE: Denmark is NOT among them (corrects a common prior); Czech Republic + Switzerland are the additions. Anchor segment = university campuses (65+ US); also grocery/retail, delivery apps, industrial sites., Financials (verified): $50M Series C closed Oct 15 2025, led by Plural (+ Karma.vc, Latitude, Coefficient Capital, SmartCap, Skaala); cumulative funding >$280M (Starship-direct). NO valuation disclosed by the company - cap-flag any aggregator valuation. '12,000+ robots by 2027' is a company projection, not a current figure., Cap-flag (autonomy framing): Starship markets 'Level 4 autonomy without active human supervision,' which reads as driverless; in practice operations are operator-supervised L4 with remote oversight/takeover available (~99% autonomous historically). Frame as operator-supervised, not no-humans. ~4 mph + exact lidar/radar specs are legacy specs, not re-cited in the Apr 2026 release.

Specs

Starship Bot: six-wheeled insulated-cargo autonomous sidewalk delivery robot at low speed (~4 mph, legacy spec) with multi-sensor fusion (cameras + radar + ultrasonics + GPS; lidar on some configs). Operator-supervised Level 4 on sidewalks: runs autonomously with remote human oversight/takeover available. Operational scale (Apr 2026, Starship-direct): 10M+ cumulative autonomous deliveries, 3,000+ robots, 300+ service areas across 8 countries, 65+ US university campuses, 22M+ autonomous km, ~125,000 road crossings/day. Captive operator-supervised SERVICE model: Starship operates its own fleet and integrates with delivery apps (Uber Eats, Just Eat, Bolt, Foodora, Grubhub, Wolt) plus grocers/retailers; does NOT sell robots to third parties.

Battery

1260 Wh

Runtime

12 h

Max speed

6 km/h

Weight kg

35

Form Factor

sidewalk (six-wheeled operator-supervised L4 sidewalk delivery robot; captive delivery-service model)

Payload kg

10

Data & sources

Press releases

5

News coverage

1

Web sources

1

7 sources backing this record.View all →

Availability and pricing

Availability
Not sold (internal use)
Price
$3K to $7K (analyst estimate)as of 2025-10-04
Units in field
2000 claimedvendor claim, unverified
Sales model
Not for sale
Lead time
Not disclosed

Autonomy: verified vs claimed

What it actually does
Supervised (human oversight)

Accountability: Starship Technologies has a Claim Integrity of 100% (4 of 4 public claims verified). See the industry ledger.

Pricing

One-time purchase

$3,000 - $7,000 USDanalyst estimateas of 2025-10-04

Source: analyst-estimate pricing via theguardian.com (Depth sourcing 2026-07-08)

Price status: actual-sale-price = real published price at time of sale; manufacturer-target = vendor target, not yet realized; analyst-estimate = third-party projection, not a vendor figure; not-announced = no price on record.

Prices verified as of Oct 4, 2025

Deployments (9)

  • Starship Technologies deployed approximately 25 autonomous delivery robots in Arlington, Virginia, delivering pizza, donuts, coffee, and food from the dining hall for $1.99 per delivery.

  • Starship Technologies launched autonomous robot delivery service in Fairfax City, Virginia on April 17, 2020, with approximately 20 robots delivering food, groceries, and items from local businesses.

  • Starship Technologies launched the first autonomous robot delivery service at a US university campus at George Mason University on January 22, 2019, in partnership with Sodexo.

  • Starship Technologies launched a sidewalk robot delivery service on the Arizona State University Tempe campus, offering contactless food delivery in partnership with Aramark.

  • Starship Technologies launched a 30-robot sidewalk delivery fleet at UNC Charlotte in March 2023, providing food delivery service on campus.

  • Starship Technologies launched food delivery robots at the University of Illinois Chicago in fall 2021 with 25 robots, later operating approximately 20 robots conducting roughly 100 deliveries per week.

  • Starship Technologies launched its sidewalk robot delivery service at Wichita State University, with robots delivering food across campus.

  • Starship Technologies launched autonomous food delivery service at Bowling Green State University, making it the first university in Ohio to offer autonomous delivery.

  • Starship Technologies operates a sidewalk robot delivery service at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, described as Starship's biggest US campus client.

Recent activity

Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.

Full change history →

Manufacturer-attributed media (2)

Manufacturer-supplied media at the model level. Not tied to an independently verified named-site deployment. Verification posture is product-showcase from the maker, distinct from the deployment-verified evidence in the section above.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Starship Technologies

Starship's footage of its sidewalk delivery robots running a campus delivery service. The robots operate with supervised autonomy (remote-operator oversight) in geofenced areas.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Starship Technologies

Official Starship Technologies video celebrating the milestone of one million autonomous deliveries. The millionth delivery took place at Bowling Green, Ohio.

Safety record

2 incidents on record (1 moderate, 1 minor). Most recent: Feb 2024.

moderate
1
minor
1
property damage
1
injury
1

Most recent: Feb 2024

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

Incidents affecting Starship Bot (2)

Includes incidents linked directly to this model or to deployments of it. Retracted incidents are excluded from this view but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Sources (7)

  1. https://www.starship.xyz/press/autonomous-delivery-moves-into-the-mainstream-as-starship-technologies-passes-10-million-deliveries/
  2. https://www.starship.xyz/press/starship-technologies-raises-50m-series-c/
  3. https://www.starship.xyz/press/skype-co-founders-launch-a-company-with-a-mission-to-make-local-delivery-free/
  4. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251015387447/en/Starship-Technologies-Raises-$50M-Series-C-to-Scale-Autonomous-Delivery-Across-U.S.-Cities
  5. https://www.therobotreport.com/starship-technologies-obtains-series-c-funding-for-autonomous-deliveries/
  6. https://www.starship.xyz/about/
  7. https://starshipdeliveries.com/industry/

Compare Starship Bot

Common questions

What is Starship Bot?
Starship Bot is the six-wheeled autonomous sidewalk delivery robot of Starship Technologies, founded in 2014 by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla, who is also chief executive, and Janus Friis, with headquarters in San Francisco and engineering hubs in Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland. The robot carries an insulated cargo compartment and navigates sidewalks at low speed using multi-sensor fusion of cameras, radar, ultrasonics, and GPS, operating as an operator-supervised Level 4 system: it drives autonomously with remote human oversight and takeover available rather than being driverless, a distinction the registry preserves against Starship's own marketing of Level 4 autonomy without active human supervision. Starship runs a captive operator-supervised service model, operating its own fleet and selling the delivery backbone to apps, retailers, and campuses rather than selling robots to third parties, integrating with platforms such as Uber Eats, Just Eat, Bolt, Foodora, Grubhub, and Wolt. As of Starship's own April 2026 disclosure it had passed ten million cumulative autonomous deliveries with more than three thousand robots across more than three hundred service areas in eight countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, and the United States, with more than sixty-five US university campuses as its anchor segment; Denmark, sometimes listed in priors, is not among them. It remains privately held, having closed a fifty-million-dollar Series C led by Plural in October 2025 that brought cumulative funding above two hundred eighty million dollars, with no valuation disclosed by the company.
How much does Starship Bot cost?
Starship Bot is listed at $3,000 to $7,000 on the DEPLOY registry. This is an analyst estimate, not an official price.
Is Starship Bot actually deployed in the real world?
Yes. Starship Bot is independently verified in real-world operation on the DEPLOY registry, confirmed at named deployment sites with primary sources: not a concept, render, or demo-only.
Is Starship Bot autonomous or teleoperated?
Yes. DEPLOY independently verifies Starship Bot performing Delivers packages autonomously, with no human in the loop.
What are the specs of Starship Bot?
Starship Bot's recorded specifications on the DEPLOY registry: Battery: 1260 Wh; Runtime: 12 h; Max speed: 6 km/h; Weight: 35 kg; Payload: 10 kg. See the Specs section for the full sourced set.
Methodology: Verified · 7 sources (5 primary) · last reviewed 2026-07-22

Verification posture

Verified

High confidence

Review state

Stable

Last reviewed 2026-07-22

Maturity + lifecycle

Maturity stage: commercial

Lifecycle: active

Architectural position

Cohort: sidewalk

Sources by quality tier

5
primary-company-ir
Company IR disclosure
1
unclassified
Unclassified source
1
secondary-trade-publication
Trade publication

The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.

Methodology surface for Starship Bot.

Recent coverage

Starship Bot in third-party press