Contactless deliveries of food and groceries – on both sides of the pond.

Self-driving shuttles startup Optimus Ride announced Thursday that three autonomous vehicles have started to deliver a week’s worth of food and ingredients to families in need located at the Yards in Washington D.C. (VentureBeat) On the other side of the Atlantic, at Milton Keynes, about 50 miles north-west of London, a platoon of about 80 delivery robots navigate the streets to bring groceries to shoppers at their homes. The cute but sturdy robots are manufactured by Estonian startup Starship. (Sifted)

The battle against COVID

Both the driverless vehicles and delivery robots are serving a crucial need for consumables during lockdowns and shelter-in-place restrictions. More importantly, because they are autonomous there’s no risk of a driver spreading infection. However, the machines do need disinfection.

Optimus Ride will deliver a total of 5,000 meals on a weekly basis, each containing ingredients such as proteins, fresh produce, and grains, as well as ready-to-eat meals like chicken soup.

The Co-Op chain had started using the Starship robots in Milton Keynes, U.K.,  even before the virus outbreak at two of its stores. But post-COVID, demand has taken off, and Co-Op is now offering the robot-based delivery service from an additional six stores. Shoppers unlock the robot’s hatch with their mobile app and retrieve their shopping. Some are so happy with the service that they leave a thank you note inside the robot.

Use cases and demands grow

“It has been a real lifeline for customers who haven’t been able to get outside their homes,” said Jason Perry, head of online development at Co-Op, to Sifted. “We’ve seen a huge increase in demand for robot deliveries since the pandemic began. We’ve doubled the order numbers and seen a four-fold increase in sales.”

As for Optimus Ride, it intends to step ahead of meals delivery at the Yards and provide commercial services, transportation, and restaurant, retail and business deliveries to residents.

“Optimus is on the verge of achieving this, given our world-class engineering team and our geofenced strategy model, which allows us to more safely and in a timely manner move to a fully driverless system operation with remote monitoring,” said CEO Ryan Chin to VentureBeat.

Funding

Starship has raised a total of $82.2 million according to Crunchbase data. Its last funding was $40 million in a Series A in August 2019.

Optimus Ride has raised about $76 million till date, including $50 million in a Series B round in November 2019.

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