Food service could be changing forever now that Serve Robotics, an automated delivery service company and former Uber subsidiary, is going public.
Announced on Thursday, the choice to go public comes after the company successfully completed a $30 million financing, bringing the company’s total funds to over $56 million as part of its bid to enter the capital markets with a strong position. The company will be listing itself after a reverse merger with a Delaware-based special acquisitions company called Patricia Acquisition Corp.
A special purpose acquisition company, is a type of publicly-traded company created with to raise funds through an initial public offering with the intention of acquiring or merging with an existing private company. It’s established as a shell company with the goal of raising capital to identify and acquire a target company, usually within a certain industry or sector.
Existing investors, such as Uber (NYSE: UBER), NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Wavemaker Partners, took the lead in the financing round joined by new investors, including Mark Tompkins and Republic Deal Room. Montrose Capital Partners sponsored the transaction, while co-placement agents Network 1 Financial Securities (consulted by Intuitive Venture Partners) and Aegis Capital Corp played a role in the process.
Serve Robotics food delivery robot. Image via Serve Robotics.
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Financing allows Serve Robotics to expand into more markets
This financing allows Serve to expand its presence into fresh markets throughout the United States and continue enhancing its AI-driven mobility platform. The company is set to amplify the size of its robotic fleet, strategically addressing the substantial and swiftly expanding customer need for last-mile automation.
This expansion includes fulfilling its commitment to deploy 2,000 robots in partnership with Uber Eats as outlined in their commercial agreement.
“Serve’s delivery volume has grown over 30 per cent month-over-month on average for the past 18 months,” said Dr. Ali Kashani, Co-founder and CEO of Serve.
“Becoming a public company provides broader access to capital, supporting our continued growth as we ramp up our partnership with the world’s largest food delivery platform and expand other enterprise partnerships.”
Following the completion of the merger, Uber held a 16.2 per cent stake, while Nvidia possessed an 11 per cent stake in Serve, as indicated by regulatory filings.
Originally known as Postmates X, Serve Robotics emerged as the robotics segment of the on-demand delivery enterprise Postmates. In 2018, its self-directed sidewalk robots commenced deliveries to Postmates customers across various neighbourhoods in Los Angeles. Subsequently, in 2020, the service evolved into a full-fledged commercial offering.
In the latter part of 2020, Uber completed its acquisition of Postmates for $2.65 billion. Following this, merely three months later, Postmates X transitioned into an independent entity under the moniker Serve Robotics. The new designation was derived from the self-sufficient sidewalk delivery robot initially developed and tested by Postmates.
Serve says that its mobile robots contribute traffic congestion and air pollution reduction and help meet the challenges faced by food delivery services due to persistent labor shortages. Serve emphasizes that its robots are autonomous, and socially aware, which means they’re aware of sidewalks and people around them. The robots themselves are also completely capable of performing all driving tasks without human intervention.
Presently, the company is operating its robotic delivery service in California.
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