Queue, a Silicon Valley startup building what it calls the world's first fully autonomous robotic pharmacy, has emerged from stealth with $12.6 million in seed funding to commercialize a machine that fills and verifies prescriptions without an on-site pharmacist.
A machine for a broken pharmacy model
Queue's system takes in sealed wholesale pill bottles and outputs filled, verified prescription vials. Each cell holds thousands of pills, and the unit can dispense a 60-pill vial every 30 seconds while supporting the 280 most-prescribed medications in the United States. The company says it can fulfill prescriptions at up to 96% lower cost than traditional pharmacy operations and can be deployed in rural and underserved communities facing so-called pharmacy deserts.
Founders from Heal, Tesla and Zipline
Queue was co-founded by CEO Nick Desai, a six-time venture-backed entrepreneur who previously built home-healthcare company Heal, and CTO Josh Liu, whose experience spans Tesla and Zipline. The 20-person team in Silicon Valley draws talent from Rivian, Waymo and aerospace companies. "Pharmacy in America is structurally broken," Liu said, framing the system as "a complete reimagining of how medications get dispensed, verified, and delivered."
AlleyCorp leads an oversubscribed round
The oversubscribed seed round was led by healthcare-focused investor AlleyCorp, following a $6 million pre-seed led by Riot Ventures less than a year ago and bringing Queue's total funding to $18.6 million. House Capital, Ubiquity Ventures, Grep Ventures and Banter Capital also participated. Queue says it has already signed a major national pharmacy chain and deployed a working prototype for early commercial validation.
The launch adds to a wave of automation reaching healthcare, from imaging hardware to surgical platforms. Queue plans to use the capital to accelerate product development, expand enterprise deployments and grow its engineering team.
Reporting based on coverage from The Robot Report, Business Wire and SiliconANGLE.