A Bolt Food delivery courier rides a bicycle outside the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan June 18, 2021. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/FILE PHOTO
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Estonian ride-hailing and food delivery startup Bolt on Wednesday said it has signed a partnership with robotics firm Starship Technologies aiming to have thousands of robots delivering food across multiple countries, starting this year.
Starship has a fleet of more than 2,000 robots in Estonia, the UK and U.S. and has completed 5 million commercial deliveries.
With this partnership, Starship will gain access to Bolt's more than 100 million customers in over 45 countries and 500 cities.
Bolt expects delivery using robots to ultimately increase its profitability per delivery.
Former Skype co-founders launched Starship in 2014 and started testing their self-driving delivery robots in London.
Since then its six-wheel robots have been operational in more than 50 service areas for last-mile delivery of food, groceries, and small packages.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; editing by Jason Neely)
