Starship Technologies

Starship Technologies is the world's most advanced last-mile autonomous delivery robotics startup, founded in 2014 in Tallinn by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis — two of the co-founders of Skype. The founding idea was simple and radical: replace vans and couriers for local deliveries with small six-wheeled autonomous robots capable of navigating pavements and pedestrian areas at moderate speed, delivering food, groceries, and parcels directly to recipients' doors. After years of development and testing on university campuses across Europe and the United States, Starship has reached meaningful scale: over 10 million deliveries completed, 3,000+ robots operating across 300+ locations in 8 countries. In Finland alone, approximately 20% of grocery deliveries are now made by a Starship robot — unprecedented market penetration for robotic delivery. In October 2025, the startup raised $50 million in a Series C — bringing total funding to over $280 million — with the goal of expanding the fleet to 12,000 robots by 2027. Partnerships with Uber Eats (UK launch December 2025, then Europe and US) and Just Eat (Sunderland, February 2026) mark the entry into mainstream commercial scale. Simultaneously, Starship repositioned its fleet from US university campuses towards grocery delivery in Europe, where demand is more stable and margins more favourable.