DoorDash customers in Los Angeles may soon be able to have their food delivered to them by one of Serve Robotics’ curbside delivery bots. The companies announced Thursday a multi-year partnership to use autonomous robots to deliver across the United States.
The partnership comes a week after DoorDash announced Dot, an autonomous food delivery bot it built and first deployed in the Phoenix area. Unlike Serve’s bots, which primarily operate on sidewalks, Dot can deliver food and small packages on roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks at speeds up to 20 miles per hour.
Serve is the latest in a series of new technology partnerships for DoorDash, which has partnered with companies such as sidewalk bot startup Coco and drone startup Wing. It’s all part of a broader plan to become a platform for multimodal delivery, according to Ashu Rege, vice president of autonomy for DoorDash Labs, the company’s robotics and automation arm.
DoorDash isn’t the first app company to go down such a path. Uber is partnering with self-driving car companies across its ride-hailing, delivery and freight operations, including Saab. Similar to how gig workers work, Serve’s bot works with both Uber and DoorDash simultaneously.
But DoorDash is doing something different here: It’s throwing its hat into the ring.
Other companies are also trying this strategy. Uber and Lyft have both tried and failed to operate both a technology stack and a platform for autonomous ride-hailing. And AV startup Nuro got its start in a similar way to Dot, before realizing that manufacturing was a sinkhole of capital.
All three companies took the scenic route, realizing that it was more cost-effective to focus on their core technologies and products.
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Rege believes DoorDash will be different. The company plans to manufacture Dot at scale, but Rege declined to provide specific details. DoorDash turned a profit for the first time in 2024 and reported record profits in the first half of 2025 as delivery volume grew 20% year-over-year. He argues that the company needs more ways to make deliveries if it is to continue serving its growing customer base.
Additionally, Rege believes Dot brings something that other form factors don’t. “We felt there was a gap. On one side you have sidewalk robots and on the other side you have robotaxis, which are great for moving people, but they don’t address the problem of the last 10 feet of delivery,” he said. “Burritos aren’t just delivered to your door, and retailers don’t want that. […] Go find this robot parked half a block away. ”
While sidewalk robots may work well in dense urban environments, Legge said Dot will fill the gap for “dense suburban deliveries” within a three- to five-mile range. Dot’s ability to cross roads and sidewalks is “a really important part,” he said.
Of course, humans could easily do all of this, but DoorDash says it plans to reserve its human workforce for more “complex” restaurant, retail, or grocery shopping.
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