Autonomous delivery vehicle company Starship Techologies has announced $25 million additional seed funding and the appointment of former Airbnb veteran Lex Bayer as its CEO.
The new investment includes follow-on investments from the likes of Matrix Partners and Morpheus Ventures as well as new investors including Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, Skype founding engineer Jaan Tallinn, and former chairman and CEO of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Gary Barber.
“I’m delighted to join the Starship team at this inflection point in the company’s journey and look forward to helping the business build on its position as the world’s leading provider of autonomous delivery,” said Bayer. “This additional funding will allow us to deploy our robots in neighbourhoods as well as corporate and university campuses in the US and Europe.”
Previously to Starship Bayer led the business, development, payments and Airbnb for Businesses functions of Airbnb, a company he joined in 2013. Prior to joining Airbnb, Lex founded online payments company Spare Change Payments and served as CEO until its acquisition by PlaySpan in 2009.
Starship co-founder Janus Friis said: “We are at the point where we are ready to start deploying our network of robots at scale. This additional funding, and Lex’s appointment, will allow us to bring our services to market. Lex joins us with a proven track record of growing businesses that change the way we live for the better.”
Robots developed by Starship Technologies have now covered over 100,000 miles around the world in 20 countries and over 100 cities, encountering over 15 million people along the way, the company claims.
Image credit: Starship Technologies
