Inside Nuro: From 2016 to Now Into a $2.1 billion business
Startup Type:
Headquarter: Mountain View, USA
Current Status: Active (private; testing and limited deployments in select U.S. cities)
Founders: Jiajun Zhu, Dave Ferguson
Founded Year: 2016
Investors: SoftBank, Greylock, Google Ventures
Funding Raised: $2.1 billion
What Is the business model of Nuro?
Robotics company developing fully autonomous delivery vehicles (small self-driving pods) to transport goods (like groceries, takeout) for retailers and restaurants, generating revenue through delivery service partnerships
How Nuro got started?
Founded by two ex-Google self-driving car engineers in 2016, Nuro took a different approach by focusing on goods delivery instead of passenger rides, they built a cute, compact self-driving vehicle and began pilots delivering groceries in Arizona by 2018
what growth strategy has Nuro followed?
Formed high-profile partnerships to pilot its service and secured special regulatory exemptions for its no-passenger vehicles, its focus on delivery allowed it to avoid some safety requirements and raise large funding to iterate toward a viable driverless delivery network
what are the top products/features of Nuro
Nuro autonomous delivery pods, partnerships for grocery and food delivery, Nuro fleet operations software
what was the biggest challenge faced by Nuro?
Dealing with regulatory approvals for unmanned vehicles on public roads and ensuring safe navigation in neighborhoods, plus heavy R&D spending with uncertain timelines to achieve meaningful commercial scale and profitability in the nascent autonomous delivery industry