Delivery robot on road in US

Vayu Robotics debuts in San Francisco what it says is the world’s first on-road “Delivery Robot” powered by AI Robotics foundation models.

 Consumers rely on e-commerce platforms to deliver groceries, electronics, apparel and more every day with deliveries skyrocketing (by 2027, 23% of American retail purchases are expected to take place online) and cost per delivery remains high, says Vayu Robotics which adds its “Delivery Robot” release will help slash the cost of e-commerce deliveries.

The company says the robot combines the power of modern AI foundation models with Lidar-less, low-cost passive sensors.

It says it has combined a transformer-based mobility foundation model with a powerful passive sensor that, together, eliminate the need for Lidar.

“As a result, Vayu’s Delivery Robot operates autonomously without pre-mapping the roads it intends to drive on and is capable of navigating inside stores, on city streets, and unloading packages on driveways or porches, carrying up to 100lbs (45.3kgs) at under 20mph (32km/h). This model is the first-of-its-kind, offering the most cost-effective, safe, reliable delivery system on the market.”

Vayu was co-founded by three robotics and mobility industry “veterans” – its chief executive Anand Gopalan, who took the world’s leading Lidar supplier Velodyne public in 2020; Mahesh Krishnamurthi, formerly with Apple SPG and Lyft; and Nitish Srivastava, also from Apple SPG and Geoffrey Hinton’s AI lab in the University of Toronto. Hinton is also an advisor to the company.

“The unique set of technologies we have developed at Vayu have allowed us to solve problems that have plagued delivery robots over the past decade, and finally create a solution that can actually be deployed at scale and enable the cheap transport of goods everywhere,” says Gopalan.

The company says it recently signed a substantial commercial agreement with a large e-commerce player to deploy 2500 robots to enable ultra-fast goods delivery, with similar commercial customers in the pipeline.

The Vayu team is also working with a leading global robotics manufacturer to replace Lidar sensors with Vayu’s sensing technology for other robotic applications, the company says.

Gopalan says Vayu’s software technology will enable the movement of quadrupedal and bipedal robots, “allowing us to expand into those markets as well”.

Khosla Ventures partner Kanu Gulati says: “We believe in backing businesses where critical and differentiated technologies can unlock a large market. Vayu is a great example of this where they have deployed novel sensing and their AI foundation models to a robotic challenge that can have immense economic and societal impact.”

Vayu has previously raised US$12.7 million to fuel its mission to remove e-commerce hardware and software bottlenecks.