Serve Robotics, a maker of self-driving sidewalk delivery robots, is expanding beyond its autonomous delivery operations in a bid to become a technology supplier to other companies building robots.

The company, which spun out of Uber’s acquisition of Postmates in 2021 and went public in 2024, said Thursday it will launch a new business line called Physical AI Services.

Specifically, Serve Robotics will offer customers its connectivity and data tools. Bedrock Robotics, a startup developing self-driving systems for construction equipment, is a customer, according to Serve. It’s also working with T-Mobile to bring AI computing power closer to robots, Serve announced alongside its third-quarter earnings on Thursday.

“We are solving the problem of robots in human spaces,” Serve Robotics CEO and co-founder Ali Kashani told TechCrunch.

Serve Robotics already makes two kinds of robots, the cute googly-eyed sidewalk delivery robot and one designed for hospitals that it got through its acquisition of Diligent Robotics.

Those businesses are not going away, Kashani emphasized in a recent interview. Instead, he said there is opportunity to sell the technology it developed for its own robots to other companies developing robots for farms, warehouses, and other uncontrolled environments.

“I kind of think of it as the AWS moment where we are taking the technology we’ve built for us, and we’re opening it up for more people to build on,” he said, adding this wouldn’t have been possible without developing its own robot fleet.

The expansion comes as Serve’s sidewalk delivery business expands, but is shifting away from Uber and toward other partners, including DoorDash and Wonder.

Source link