It’s been nearly a month since Starship Technologies announced it would wind down food delivery by its autonomous sidewalk rolling robots at universities across the US.
Instead, the company intends to focus on deliveries from retail grocery chains in cities across Europe and the US.
More than 1,200 robots from the US campuses will be redeployed to support grocery retailers across Europe and the US, the company said in a statement on June 4.
Soon, no more mighty little Starship bots will be glimpsed rumbling down quaint sidewalks with their lights shining late into a snowy night as a college freshman awaits a hot cookie and milk delivery.
Colleges offered a closed, controlled environment that gave the company, starting in 2018, a chance to get its wheels working under its bots. Ahi Heinla, CEO and co-founder of Starship, said the unit economics are clear, an its robots could deliver groceries at up to $4 lower per delivery compared to traditional couriers, giving Starship a competitive advantage. The global food delivery market is now valued at $650 billion and “needs tailored, workable and sustainable solutions.”
UPDATE: The wind-down won’t happen right away. Starship said in early June that service on campuses is expected to continue through the back-to-school season in the fall. But Heinla contacted Fierce on June 30 and said the wind-down could be earlier: "We are working closely with all university campuses and industry partners to ensure a smooth transition as we officially wind down campus operations over the coming summer months. We are committed to minimizing disruption for campus communities throughout this process."
Starship’s robot deliveries reached more than 60 universities and campus commuinities overwhelmingly have loved them, based on surveys and verbatim comments from students and campus visitors.
At James Madison University’s major quad in Harrisonburg, Va., it has been commonplace on a weeknight to see several Starship bots moving along a matrix of sidewalks at the same time, their lights blinking, making deliveries to students in their dorms. Students will walk out from inside a dorm and use a smartphone to open the bot’s top and retrieve a bag of burgers and drinks. Visitors to campus will sometimes challenge their forward sensing capability, stepping in front to see if they would stop. They did, while also waiting for cars at crosswalks, even major highways with traffic signals.
“They’ll be missed. People on campus love them,” one JMU campus staffer told Fierce. “People sometimes don’t want to walk or drive to get a snack.”
Delivery bots are not universally loved, and it will be interesting to see how Starship bots navigate grocery deliveries along US streets where truck and auto traffic can be more challenging than on a campus. However, Starship sees strong demand. In Finland, it has reached 20% market penetration where one in five grocery deliveries is now completed by a Starship robot.
Starship was founded in 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia, by Heinla, chief architect of Skype and Janu Friis, co-founder of Skype. It raised $50 million in October 2025, with total funding reaching $280 million. It claims to have made 10 million plus deliveries using 3,000 robots at 300 locations in eight countries, marking the largest autonomous delivery market in the world.
In earlier reporting, Starship told Fierce its robots act autonomously to sense their surroundings and navigate their pathways, but if a serious accident were to develop, the bots can also be controlled by humans over a wireless connection.
