Indianapolis-based smart mailbox developer Arrive has raised more than $1.3 million from 428 investors in July. The funding will increase development and marketing of the company’s mailboxes that provide a smart and secure place for mail and parcel deliveries in place of currently barely secured mailboxes or open porches. The smart mailboxes are also designed to enable and integrate with autonomous last mile delivery robots and drones, reducing traffic congestion and pollution in cities and communities.

Arrive addresses the insecurity of mail and package delivery in many cities, especially in North America where mail is not delivered directly through the door or to the householder, but is left in unprotected mailboxes or placed in porches and driveways. An estimated 1.7 million packages a day in North America are stolen before they could be picked up by their owners. 

Arrive provides a secure mailbox that can keep packages safe from theft and can accept delivery via human or autonomous means, including autonomous robots and drones. The mailboxes also provide documented chain-of-custody.

Arrive chief executive Dan O’Toole is among the first in the United States to secure patents for a smart mailbox designed to securely accept packages delivered by drone and holds a first-position patent portfolio for the next-generation mailbox of autonomous and drone delivery. 

“This demonstration of support for our product is really important as we get closer to distribution,” said O’Toole. “We’ve been working steadily for the past nine years, hitting all our targets and constantly iterating as the industry advances. We’re more than ready to be out there in the field.”