While Starship and Amazon are spearheading the category of $55B autonomous delivery market, Ottonomy.IO, a self-driving robotics delivery startup headquartered in New York, addressing the growing demand for last-mile deliveries, has recently closed a $3.3 million seed funding. The investment was led by Bangalore-based Pi Ventures, which backs deep tech startups. Further, Connetic Ventures and Branded Hospitality Ventures and the Founder & CEO of Addverb Technologies, Sangeet Kumar also participated in the round.
Ottobots 2.0 for airports
Ottonomy.IO will use the funds to support the scale of the latest version of its fully autonomous robot for the airports, retail and restaurant deliveries, dubbed Ottobots 2.0. The delivery bot includes fully customisable modular cabins, increased customer access and directional mobility, and a crab mode that lets it navigate sideways.
Founded in late 2020 by Ritukar Vijay along with Pradyot Korupolu, Ashish Gupta and Hardik Sharma, the company employs about 25 people in the U.S. and India and has already deployed its robots at the Cincinnati International Airport. Further, it is in talks with multiple airports in the U.S. and Europe to expand its business.
In addition to expanding its curbside and last-mile delivery technology advances, the company is also involved with top Fortune 500 corporations in the retail and restaurants industry across North America for broad adoption.
“Last mile delivery is the least productive, yet the most expensive part of the delivery chain. There is a strong need for automation, which Ottonomy fulfills with Ottobots,” said Roopan Aulakh, Managing Director from pi Ventures. “Ottobots are equipped with a sophisticated tech stack both at hardware and AI level. The founding team here brings years of multi-functional robotics experience, reflecting in the world-class product that they have built and commercialised. ”
“The team and I have been deeply vested into autonomous driving for more than a decade. We believe fully autonomous delivery robots are not only a precursor to autonomous vehicle proliferation but are solving today’s biggest challenges like – the labor shortage; enabling staff to do more with less,” said Co-founder and CEO, Ritukar Vijay. “Introducing Ottobot 2.0, we are bringing best in class maneuverability, accessibility and modularity to our fully autonomous robots; which sets us ahead of our competition.”
Kyle Schotman Cofounder & MD of Connetic Ventures said, “The progress we have seen from Ottonomy since our first investment is amazing and prompted us to continue supporting them as they are truly innovating curbside delivery through their revolutionary technology capabilities. Their early success in the retail channel be that curbside delivery or gate delivery at an airport has been promising and they are just scratching the surface of what can be achieved. We are happy to be part of such a fast growing and innovative company and can’t wait to see what they achieve with this new round of financing.”
Michael “Schatzy” Schatzberg, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Branded Hospitality Ventures said, “Robots are transforming the food service industry to help restaurants operate more efficiently. Technology has revolutionised the manufacturing industry. Now, it’s translating that success into the restaurant industry on a broader scale. As operators and investors, we are bullish on investing in robotics, such as Ottonomy, that streamline businesses in a way that cuts costs and maximises output.”
Next-gen fully autonomous robots
Ottonomy’s robots “Ottobots” claims to be the world’s first autonomous robots to deliver food, beverage and travel retail items at airports. Further, the company plans to expand to the Middle East and South America this year.
Check out a sneak peak at the company’s bot over here:
