Is Robot Delivery The Next Big Thing? Starship Technologies Raises $40 Million To Expand In Growing Industry

Two of the founders behind Skype have raised enough money to continue growing their robot delivery business. Starship Technologies announced Tuesday that it had raised another $40 million in a new round of funding.

The company is moving forward after backing from investment firms Morpheus Ventures, TDK Ventures, and Qu Ventures, along with a new wave of capital from previous investors Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners and MetaPlanet Holdings. In total, Starship Technologies has been able to raise $85 million since 2014. The latest round of investments will help expand delivery services to more college campuses.

“This new investment will see Starship expand onto more campuses as we head towards a goal of offering our service to over one million students,” CEO Lex Bayer said in a statement Tuesday.

Starship delivery robots operate on three college campuses: Northern Arizona University, George Mason University and the University of Pittsburgh. However, the company is looking to expand to 100 campuses within the next two years and has already seen growth in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Estonia.

San Francisco-based Starship was founded in 2014 by Janus Friis, of Denmark, and Ahti Heinla, of Estonia. The two entrepreneurs helped launch Skype in 2003. Retail giant eBay acquired Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion.

With Starship, Friis and Heinla are looking to seize on the potential of robotic delivery, which includes competitors such as Amazon and Deutsche Post as well as startups like Nuro and Marble. Starship's small robots originally started off delivering food orders but have since expanded services to deliver groceries and small packages.

“Starship... has now delivered over 6,000 pizzas, 7,000 gallons of milk, 8,000 coffees, 9,000 sushi rolls, 15,000 bananas as well as over 3,700 diapers,” the company said.

Starship uses a subscription service that costs $10 a month. Users summon the bots with an app.