A new company aims to take the idea of sidewalk delivery robots and supersize it.
Los Angeles-based Robomart unveiled its new delivery robot Monday, with the goal of making “on‑demand delivery work economically.” The level-four autonomous vehicle is the size of a shuttle bus and can carry up to 500 lbs of payload. With no space for a human driver, the company’s RM5 vehicle is comprised of 10 individual lockers for customer orders, allowing it to make multiple deliveries on a single run.
“Robomart exists to deliver autonomy in a way that finally makes on‑demand delivery work economically,” said Emad Suhail Rahim, co‑founder and chief strategy officer of Robomart, in a press release. “With RM5, retailers get a profitable channel for on-demand delivery and consumers get everyday essentials delivered at affordable prices. That’s the future we’re building—an autonomous Instacart that’s actually profitable.”
Like Instacart or Uber Eats, the company aims to launch its own app where customers can browse options from a variety of retailers, restaurants, and grocery stores. And Robomarts says customers will only have to pay a flat delivery rate of $3 per order, promising “no markups, no service fees, no tips.”
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The setup will result in “70 percent lower fulfillment costs than human couriers,” the company claims – thought it doesn’t explain how it arrives at that figure. Most food delivery services are not profitable, though companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats have made significant gains in revenue over the years. Robot delivery, in particular, faces a lot of hurdles, including initial costs in developing robotic hardware and AI software.
“By carrying 50x more than sidewalk bots or drones, the RM5 platform enables us to serve many more customers per hour without the labor and capacity bottlenecks of legacy approaches,” Tigran Shahverdyan, co-founder and CTO of Robomart, said in the announcement.
The RM5 vehicle is relatively unique among autonomous vehicles today. Rather than opt for a small, for-wheeled robot that can carry one order and travel on the sidewalk, Robomart decided to go big. In addition to its multi-locker design, the vehicle is engineered to only travel at low speeds, with a maximum speed of 25 mph. The fully electric vehicle has a range of 112 miles and a curb weight of 2,205 lbs. There are a total of 10 climate-controlled lockers that can hold about 50 lbs each.
After an order is placed, Robomart says it will dispatch its vehicle to the retailer for pickup, after which it can visit a number of other shops before heading out for deliveries. The RM5 vehicles are able to create a dynamic, multi stop route depending on the number of orders. Upon arrival, the customer uses the app to unlock their assigned locker and retrieve their order — much like with a sidewalk delivery robot.
The company has been trialing its service for a few years now. A video from four years ago shows them using Mercedes minivans to fulfill customer orders. Robomart says it “has partnered” with a number of retailers, including Ahold Delhaize, Unilever, Mars, Avery Dennison, and Yamaha Motors. The venture-backed company has received a modest amount of funding from Hustle Fund, Wasabi Ventures, W Ventures, Entrepreneur Ventures, Capital Factory, and HAX. According to TechCrunch, the company has raised less than $5 million since its founding in 2018.
Robomart says it is looking to collaborate with local businesses ahead of its planned launch in Austin, Texas later this year.
