“What’s worse than being a CEO of a public company is that you’re now a CEO of a private company,” said Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. According to him, access to capital is everything about robotics. And in today’s “FOMO-led” venture environment, funding is not guaranteed.
Supported by Nvidia and Uber, Saab recently raised $80 million to extend the runway until 2026. The company aims to run from 100 sidewalk delivery robots in Los Angeles to 2,000 bots across US cities by the end of this year, reaching operational profitability once the fleet is fully deployed. This is a bold play in a space where hardware, logistics and data all collide.
Today, Rebecca Berran catches up to Kashani, and the future of last mile delivery is when Saab unfolds its open market navigation, expands real-world robotics using food delivery as a test ground, and builds what it wants.
Listen to the entire episode and hear the following:
How did the 2021 postmate spin-out benefit public companies with a reverse merger in 2024? What it takes to expand the delivery fleet across cities like LA, Miami, Dallas, and why serves can’t be launched on university campuses like rivals. Why Kashani says Serv’s sidewalk bots collect four times more visual data per day than the GPT-4 vision model. How ground robots and drones work together to ultimately crack logistics for the last mile.
Equity will return on Friday with weekly news roundups and special Google I/O coverage from Max. Don’t miss it!
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast produced by Teresa Loconsolo, posted every Wednesday and Friday.
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