On-demand delivery platform Frayt announced Tuesday it has closed $7 million in Series A funding led by Refinery Ventures with participation from Capital Midwest, Venture 53 and the JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund to continue executing its objective of not only building a marketplace for shippers to obtain last-mile services but to encourage its driver network’s entrepreneurial spirit.
“We are looking to empower these independent contractors and truly treat them as owners of their businesses,”...
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Contending with a rapidly declining internal valuation, grocery delivery platform Instacart is...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/instacart-eyeing-delivery-for-small-business
This week marked a milestone for the drone delivery industry when Rwanda became the first country in the world to establish a nationwide drone delivery network in collaboration with San Francisco-based Zipline.
The drone firm’s partnership with the Rwandan government opened up its service to the country’s entire population, something that had never been done. But the news probably got some observers wondering: Where’s the U.S.’s countrywide drone delivery service?
Given the snail’s pace of...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/walmart-droneup-expand-delivery-service-to-florida-texas-arizona
Is the U.S. finally ready for the next phase of last-mile delivery?
According to a new survey from software firm Circuit, 9 in 10 Americans have decided they’re ready to trust autonomous delivery robots, a far cry from 2018, when just 57% of Americans even knew they existed.
Per the same report, Uber (NYSE: UBER) platform Uber Eats was ranked among the three most trusted companies when it comes to autonomous food delivery. And this week, it launched its third such service since the spring.
On...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/uber-eats-cartken-bring-robot-delivery-to-miami
There’s a new player in the app-based delivery space — but food isn’t on the menu.
Launched this week in six select California counties, Garden Grove-based Xpede is looking to fill a very different niche in the on-demand delivery industry. Rather than working with restaurants or grocery stores, the startup instead offers delivery and pickup of personal belongings (things like wallets, keys and cell phones), packages and even legal documents.
Currently, Xpede’s rapid delivery service is available...
According to a recent survey from Descartes, there’s only one thing that matters more than delivery speed.
Fifty-four percent of over 8,000 e-commerce consumers who responded to the survey said that they would accept longer lead times when dealing with companies that emphasize sustainable delivery. So it only seems logical that last-mile delivery firms are beginning to go electric.
That’s good news for electric vehicle manufacturers like Cenntro Electric Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: CENN), which on...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/cenntro-unveils-2-new-evs-for-on-demand-and-last-mile-delivery
Two years after introducing grocery delivery to Uber Eats, the platform just put out its “most comprehensive update yet.”
Uber Eats on Thursday revealed several new features it plans to add to its grocery delivery service in the coming weeks, including an option for customers to schedule deliveries from stores that are closed. Other new features include live order tracking and an improved system for offering product replacements, Uber said in a blog post.
“Starting next week in select cities, and...
Last-mile delivery platform Dispatch is now servicing areas in California and will add New York to its coverage later this week, the company announced Tuesday.
Dispatch, which provides business-to-business, on-demand, last-mile deliveries, began servicing the Los Angeles, San Jose and Orange Country areas of California on June 20, with additional service to Oakland and the Inland Empire. On Thursday, coverage will commence on Long Island, New York.
“We are growing to accommodate the needs of the...
In the U.S. food delivery landscape, there’s been one big eater. DoorDash has dominated the category among third-party delivery apps, growing its market share among the big three food delivery platforms — Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub — to a staggering 57%.
In the grocery delivery space, though, it’s anybody’s war to win.
Instacart has long reigned supreme in grocery. It’s held greater than a 60% share in the market for online grocery pickup and delivery spend since April 2020, according to...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/uber-eats-piloting-on-demand-grocery-delivery
The direct-to-consumer shipping trend has gone cold – as in ice cream cold. Robomart, the on-demand retail store that sends a vehicle filled with items directly to the consumer, announced a partnership with Unilever to deliver that company’s famous ice cream brands, including Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers.
Robomart vehicles will deliver ice cream products under Unilever’s The Ice Cream Shop virtual brand name. The delivery products will include the aforementioned brands as well as Good Humor, Magnum...