• Cartken, an autonomous delivery droid manufacturer, has partnered with the food delivery service Grubhub to deploy delivery droids at Grubhub-serviced college campuses across the US in the coming months.

• As per the deal, Cartken could potentially reach 250+ Grubhub-serviced university locations over the course of the partnership.

<ul><li>The companies first tested the droids at the Ohio State University (OSU) earlier this year, with plans for a full rollout of the service starting this fall (semester starting in August).</ul>

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Grubhub first partnered with the Russian incumbent and droid maker Yandex last July to bring the latter’s droids to 250 Grubhub-serviced universities in the US. However, as Grubhub severed ties with Yandex earlier this year citing economic sanctions imposed on Russia following conflicts with Ukraine, the droid-based delivery service that was live at two universities at the time (OSU and the University of Arizona) came to a halt. Peer startups Starship Technologies and Kiwibot have also adopted a similar strategy of tapping university colleges. In fact, Starship droids serve around 25 universities today, while Kiwibots move around at 10+ such locations, with plans to add 50 more throughout the year.</ul>