Serve Robotics (Nasdaq: SERV) used a single Aug. 17 announcement to widen its autonomous delivery footprint on four fronts at once, headlined by a first-ever partnership with Grubhub, the U.S. ordering marketplace owned by Wonder.
Grubhub joins Serve's platform ranks
Under the new agreement, Serve's sidewalk robots will fulfill Grubhub orders from more than 100 participating merchants in Chicago and nearly 200 in Los Angeles, plus Wonder's Alexandria, Virginia flagship. It is Serve's first major platform partner since its long-running Uber Eats deal wound down earlier this year, and it puts Serve inside the Grubhub app's 4,000-city footprint of 415,000+ merchants.
"Every new partner puts more robots to work, and every delivery makes the whole fleet smarter," said co-founder and CEO Ali Kashani. Wonder EVP PJ Poykayil framed the deal as a way to "expand delivery options, improve efficiency and create a more seamless mealtime experience."
DoorDash goes to DC and San Jose, plus a Miami micro depot
Serve simultaneously launched with last-mile partner DoorDash in Washington, DC and San Jose, its seventh and eighth major U.S. markets, bringing the population served to roughly 8 million. In DC, robots are starting service in Dupont Circle and downtown, with Talkin' Tacos among the early merchants.
The company also debuted its first "micro depot" in Miami, a small-footprint site for staging, charging, dispatch and maintenance that can be stood up in weeks instead of the months a full facility requires. Micro depots are designed as a repeatable growth template for adding new neighborhoods without the capital cost of a full operations center.
Moxi 2.0 lands in hospitals, Beacon and Chomp round out the day
Diligent Robotics, the hospital automation company Serve acquired earlier this year, began rolling out its next-generation Moxi 2.0 robot to Endeavor Health, Providence Saint John's and Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Moxi 2.0 packs 10x more onboard compute, perceives its environment up to 15x faster, and can operate for 18 hours between 30%-faster charges. It debuts a fleet-wide World Model that shares learnings across every deployed unit.
Serve also previewed "Beacon," a countertop device that lets any restaurant accept robot pickups with nothing more than a power outlet, and unveiled "Characters," a Serve Advertising product that gives brands a conversational AI persona wrapped around the robots. The first Character, Chomp, is a talking hamburger co-created with Grubhub.
Reporting based on coverage from GlobeNewswire, Bloomberg, and Serve Robotics' investor relations announcement.