Uber has made a surprising decision for its partners: it has fully exited its investment in Serve Robotics, the developer of autonomous delivery robots. Serve Robotics' management learned of the move only from an official regulatory filing, according to TechCrunch. The news is also reported by infohub.kz.
The partnership began in 2020 when Uber acquired the delivery service Postmates for $2.65 billion. In 2021, Postmates' robotics division was spun off into an independent company, Serve Robotics. The partners planned to deploy up to 2,000 robots on the streets of American cities to deliver food through the Uber Eats platform.
However, in the second quarter of this year, order volume through Uber declined for the first time in 17 consecutive quarters of growth. Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani cited disagreements with Uber over the model for expanding the robot fleet and integrating merchants. Meanwhile, Serve's order volume through other delivery partners grew by nearly 50%.
The current agreement between the companies expires in early 2027, and the robot developer is already considering not renewing it. At the same time, Uber is redirecting investments toward autonomous taxi technology services.