Uber Rival Bolt Taps AI Robots For Food Delivery

Uber Technologies, Inc UBER rival Bolt Technology OU will begin using robots to deliver customers' food orders under a new partnership.

In 2023, the deal with Starship Technologies, created by two Skype cofounders, will see "thousands" of robots handling Bolt Food orders across multiple countries, Bloomberg cites a company statement.

The financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed.

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Bolt has over 100 million customers in Europe, Africa, West Asia, and Latin America. Meanwhile, Starship has completed 5 million commercial deliveries worldwide, including through a partnership with Grubhub on college campuses. 

Its founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, both worked at the video-conferencing company Skype. 

The partnership plans to launch in Estonia, the place of inception of Starship and Bolt.

Thanks to the AI wave, Bolt and Starship joined many companies focusing on robotics and artificial intelligence. U.S. technology companies like Nvidia Corp NVDA and Microsoft Corp MSFT have surged to record highs this year.

Heinla and Friis founded Starship in 2014, 11 years after setting up Skype with Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. 

The firm is close to being cash-flow positive, according to Heinla. He did not disclose its valuation but said it was in the "hundreds of millions" when it last raised money.

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