• Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery droid manufacturer, has expanded its partnership with grocery retailer Save Mart to launch an on-demand grocery delivery service at its Lucky California grocery store in Pleasanton, California.

• The service will be available for “thousands of” residents in the area, with plans to expand the delivery range in the coming months.

• Save Mart expects to expand the service to include other locations in northern California in the future.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Starship Technologies first partnered with Save Mart in September 2020 and has been conducting autonomous grocery deliveries from its flagship store in Modesto, California ever since. In addition to the early trials in partnership with DoorDash and Postmates in 2017, Save Mart is the only retailer/delivery services provider in the US to have deployed Starship robots to date. Starship’s operations in the US are mostly limited to partnerships with universities, despite having well-established commercial operations in the UK.</ul>