On Wednesday, London-based Pronto announced it formed a partnership with tech startup Starship Technologies to use self-driving robots for food deliveries. The restaurant provides healthy meals delivered hot with a 25-minute free delivery. Pronto took to Seedrs in May and secured £838,620 to expand its delivery area to cover the central part of the city.
Pronto’s team stated:
“We are incredibly excited to announce our partnership with Starship Technologies to bring the first self-driving delivery robots to the streets of London. Soon you’ll find yourself walking down the same old streets but this time with a robot whizzing alongside you. No, it’s not Skynet and yes, this is actually happening! We always talk about how innovation and technology underpin everything we do here at Pronto and this is just the beginning of what you’ll see from us.”
The company noted the robots would allow it to make its offering more cost effective for customers, ensuring an efficient and environmentally-friendly delivery solution.
“The tech behind these self-driving robots is nothing short of outstanding. Each one is fitted with nine cameras, two-way audio, obstacle detection and a situational awareness bubble. Oh, and an alarm; so no picking it up and throwing it around.”
The Pronto team is set to begin testing with a small robotic fleet and will give customers the option to select ‘Starship’ as a preferred delivery option for orders. Those who use this option will receive a unique code to unlock deliveries upon arrival.
James Roy Poulter, CEO and co-founder at Pronto added:
“As soon as we saw the Starship delivery robot we knew this was the solution we’d been looking for in our mission to make it even easier for people to access quality, affordable food at the touch of a button. We can’t wait to launch this test programme in London and roll it out in time across other cities as we expand our reach both in the UK and abroad. We hope to see the streets lined with thousands of these robots bringing people their hot, ready-to-eat Pronto meal on-demand and providing an even more cost-effective, efficient and environmentally friendly delivery solution for our customers.”
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