Nuro

Nuro, Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustryRobotics
Founded2016; 8 years ago (2016)
Founders
  • Jiajun Zhu
  • Dave Ferguson
Headquarters
Mountain View, California
,
United States
Key people
Jiajun Zhu (CEO)
Number of employees
1,200 (2022)[1]
Websitenuro.ai

Nuro, Inc. is an American robotics company based in Mountain View, California. Founded by Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson,[2] Nuro develops autonomous delivery vehicles and is the first company to receive an autonomous exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.[3]

History

The company was founded by engineers of Google's self-driving car project, Waymo. Zhu served as the principal software engineer and Ferguson joined in 2011 as the principal machine learning engineer.[4][5] Zhu and Ferguson left Waymo in 2016 and founded Nuro that September.[6]

Nuro brought its robotic delivery vehicles to market in January 2018 with $92 million in funding from Greylock Partners and Gaorong Capital.[7]

In February 2019 Nuro raised $940 million from SoftBank Group, which valued the company at $2.7 billion. Nuro said it would use the funds to expand its delivery service to new areas, add new partners, expand its fleet, and grow its business.[8] In September 2019, the company was ranked No. 10 on LinkedIn's Top 50 Startups List for 2019.[9]

In November 2020, Nuro announced that they raised $500 million in their Series C funding round led by T. Rowe Price, with a post-money valuation of $5 billion.[10]

In December 2020, Nuro acquired self-driving trucking startup Ike Robotics.[11] Over 55 Ike employees (including its three founders) joined Nuro's staff after the acquisition.[12][13]

In August 2021, Nuro announced that it would spend $40 million on the construction of a manufacturing facility and test track for its self-driving robot vehicles, located in southern Nevada.[14]

In November 2022, Nuro announced layoffs of 20 percent of its staff, or approximately 300 employees.[1]

In May 2023, Nuro announced that it would layoff 30 percent of its staff, or approximately 340 employees.[15]

Partnerships

In June 2018, Nuro announced its first partnership with Kroger to test the fully autonomous delivery of groceries.[16] On June 17, 2019, Nuro announced its partnership with Domino's Pizza.[17] Nuro and Domino's announced that the service would launch in Houston later in 2019.[18] The company began prescription delivery through CVS Pharmacy in May 2020.[19] In December 2021, Nuro announced a partnership to commercially deliver 7-Eleven goods.[20]

In September 2022, Uber and Nuro announced a 10-year partnership for autonomous food deliveries starting in California and Texas.[21]

Product

Nuro officially launched in January 2018 and showcased its first product, an electric self-driving local commerce delivery vehicle. Known as the R1, it weighs 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and is just over 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, about half the width of a sedan. This vehicle is designed to carry only cargo, with space for 12 grocery bags in the first model.[22]

The pilot launched on August 16, 2018, in Scottsdale, Arizona at a Fry's Food and Drug store. Initially, self-driving Toyota Prius cars were used for the pilot.[23][24][25] On December 18, 2018, the R1 was officially launched into the pilot.[26] In February 2020, Nuro announced its plans to test R2, the second generation of self-driving vehicles, in Houston, Texas.[27]

In April 2020, Nuro announced that the R2 prototype was being used to transport medical supplies around medical facilities in California.[28] The R2 is designed with no steering wheel, side view mirrors, or pedals.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hawkins, Andrew J. (November 18, 2022). "Robot delivery startup Nuro is laying off 20 percent of its workers". The Verge. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  2. ^ Hawkins, Andrew J. (January 30, 2018). "Two ex-Google engineers built an entirely different kind of self-driving car". The Verge. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  3. ^ Wiggers, Kyle (May 22, 2020). "Autonomous delivery companies stress need for clearer rules on deployment". VentureBeat. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  4. ^ Davies, Alex (June 28, 2018). "Get Yer Bread and Milk From Kroger's Cute New Delivery Robot". WIRED. ISSN 1059-1028.
  5. ^ Bergen, Mark (June 11, 2018). "Nuro's Driverless Cars Don't Have to Worry About Passenger Safety". Bloomberg.com.
  6. ^ Bhuiyan, Johana (September 15, 2016). "Meet the startup that two of Google's top self-driving engineers left to create". Recode. Vox. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  7. ^ "California start-up Nuro unveils autonomous delivery van, raises $92 million". Reuters. San Francisco. Reuters. January 30, 2018. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  8. ^ "Driverless delivery startup Nuro gets $940 million SoftBank investment". Reuters. Reuters. February 11, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  9. ^ Hempel, Jessi (September 4, 2019). "LinkedIn Top Startups 2019: The 50 hottest U.S. companies to work for now". LinkedIn. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  10. ^ Korosec, Kirsten (November 9, 2020). "Autonomous delivery startup Nuro hits $5 billion valuation on fresh funding of $500 million". TechCrunch.
  11. ^ Schubarth, Cromwell (December 23, 2020). "Self-driving delivery unicorn Nuro picks up Ike Robotics". Silicon Valley Business Journal. American City Business Journals. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  12. ^ Korosec, Kirsten (December 23, 2020). "Nuro acquires autonomous trucking startup Ike". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  13. ^ Wiggers, Kyle (December 23, 2020). "Nuro acquires self-driving truck startup Ike". VentureBeat. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  14. ^ Hawkins, Andrew (August 26, 2021). "Nuro is building a factory and test track in Nevada for its autonomous delivery robots – The self-driving startup is dramatically expanding its footprint". The Verge. Retrieved September 1, 2021.
  15. ^ "Nuro lays off 30 percent of staff, shifts focus to R&D". Engadget. May 12, 2023. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  16. ^ Dickey, Megan Rose (June 28, 2018). "Self-driving car startup Nuro teams up with Kroger for same-day grocery delivery". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  17. ^ Davies, Alex (June 17, 2019). "Nuro's Pizza Robot Will Bring You a Domino's Pie". WIRED. ISSN 1059-1028.
  18. ^ Murphy, Mike (June 17, 2019). "Dominos is about to start delivering pizzas with autonomous robots". Quartz. Retrieved June 21, 2019. Nuro will deliver Domino's pizza with its robots in Houston
  19. ^ Korosec, Kirsten (May 28, 2020). "Nuro's self-driving vehicles to deliver prescriptions for CVS Pharmacy". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  20. ^ Korosec, Kirsten (December 1, 2021). "Nuro and 7-Eleven to pilot autonomous delivery service in California". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  21. ^ "Uber and Nuro Announce 10-Year Partnership for Autonomous Food Deliveries Starting in California and Texas". PR Newswire. San Francisco. PRNewswire. September 8, 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
  22. ^ Davies, Alex. "Nuro's Self-Driving R-1 Doesn't Drive You. It Drives Stuff". WIRED. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  23. ^ Dickey, Megan Rose (August 16, 2018). "Nuro and Kroger are deploying self-driving cars for grocery delivery in Arizona today". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  24. ^ Pollack, Neal (August 28, 2018). "Road-Testing the First Autonomous Car Grocery Delivery Service". The Drive. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  25. ^ Rosenholtz, Jared (December 26, 2020). "The Toyota Prius Will Drive Itself Before Any Tesla". CarBuzz. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  26. ^ Lee, Timothy B. (December 18, 2018). "Kroger-owned grocery store begins fully driverless deliveries". Ars Technica. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  27. ^ "Self-driving delivery van ditches 'human controls'". BBC News. BBC. February 6, 2020. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  28. ^ Hawkins, Andrew (April 22, 2020). "Nuro is using delivery robots to help health care workers fighting COVID-19 – The self-driving delivery company is operating at two field hospitals in California". The Verge. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  29. ^ McFarland, Matt (February 6, 2020). "Autonomous delivery companies stress need for clearer rules on deployment". CNN Business. Washington, DC: CNN. CNN. Retrieved January 21, 2020. US clears the way for this self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals