Postmates Spins Off Robotics Arm Into New Company Called Serve Robotics

Yesterday, Postmates X, the robotics arm of the Uber-owned delivery startup, officially spun into an independent company: Serve Robotics. And it’s hoping to land an ace.

Tech timeline: Postmates’s first foray into sidewalk delivery bots was in 2017, and by the end of the following year, the company had a working version of its Serve autonomous delivery robot. Next came an updated version with new lidar sensors (mid-2019), and in 2020, Serve began piloting last-mile delivery service in Los Angeles.

• Now, Serve Robotics has big plans for its sidewalk fleet. The company recently closed its first funding round, led by VC firm Neo.
• Serve’s five-year plan? “Remove 100,000 cars [from] the road by serving 5% of food deliveries,” CEO Ali Kashani told us.

Since the onset of Covid-19, Uber’s been betting big on delivery—and ditching moonshots. That’s meant mass layoffs, selling off its electric and autonomous transportation bets, and buying up on-demand delivery companies.

Our takeaway: It’s been four months since Proposition 22 passed in California. Uber campaigned hard for the initiative, which absolved it of providing employee-level benefits to its drivers. With that potential expense gone, Uber may view robotic delivery as an unnecessary investment.