California-based autonomous delivery company Serve Robotics has raised another $30m in financing, bringing the company’s total funds raised to over $56m.

Serve has also completed a reverse merger with Patricia Acquisition, a public Delaware corporation, whereby Serve became a wholly owned subsidiary of Patricia. Following the transaction, Patricia changed its name to Serve Robotics, and will continue the historic business of Serve.

The financing was led by existing investors, including Uber, Nvidia and Wavemaker Partners, with participation from new investors Mark Tompkins and Republic Deal Room. Uber vice president Sarfraz Maredia has joined the company’s board.

This financing enables Serve to enter new markets across the USA and advance its AI-powered mobility platform. The company will also begin scaling up its robotic fleet to meet massive and rapidly-increasing customer demand for last-kilometre automation, including fulfilling its commercial agreement to deploy up to 2000 robots with Uber Eats.

“We’re thrilled that our core strategic partners Uber and Nvidia continue to back Serve as we work to bring sustainable, autonomous delivery to every doorstep in the next five years,” said Ali Kashani, CEO of Serve. “Serve’s delivery volume has grown over 30% month-over-month on average for the past 18 months. Becoming a public company provides broader access to capital, supporting our continued growth as we ramp up our partnership with the world’s largest food delivery platform and expand other enterprise partnerships.”

Serve designs, develops and operates zero-emissions robots that serve people in public spaces, starting with food delivery. Founded in 2017 as the robotics division of Postmates, Serve set out to build a robotic delivery experience that improves reliability for merchants and reduces vehicle emissions to zero. Six years later, the company’s self-driving robots have completed tens of thousands of contactless deliveries in Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was spun off from Postmates as an independent company in February 2021.

The transaction was sponsored by Montrose Capital Partners. Network 1 Financial Securities and Aegis Capital served as co-placement agents.

www.serverobotics.com