• Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery droid manufacturer, has ended its partnership with grocery retailer Save Mart, which was making droid-based grocery deliveries to the latter’s customers in cities in Northern California. This came as a result of Starship recently exiting certain US cities including the areas served under the partnership with Save Mart. 

<ul><li>Starship announced pulling back its delivery services in certain US cities and Germany earlier this month, citing the shift in focus toward reducing costs and increasing profitability. The exact locations were not disclosed at the time but reportedly the list includes Mountain View, Modesto, and Pleasanton in California. However, Starship will continue to provide services to several US universities that it serviced including UC Irvine, UCLA, and Arizona State University.</ul> 

• The company has also laid off 11% of its global team including employees in the US. Starship attributed these internal changes to challenges in the macroeconomic and investment environments.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: The scaling down of Starship’s operations comes despite raising approximately USD 100 million this year alone, partially to expand market reach in Europe and the US. Starship first partnered with Save Mart in September 2020 and has been conducting autonomous grocery deliveries from its flagship store in Modesto, California ever since. The duo even extended the partnership earlier this year to include another store in Pleasanton, California—but it looks like the future expansion plans they had at the time have now come to a halt. Starship’s operations in the US were anyway mostly limited to partnerships with universities, despite having well-established commercial operations in the UK.</ul>