Uber Reshuffles Robo-Delivery Landscape with Avride Partnership
DeliverZero launches on Grubhub, DoorDash adds ad tools, data on dining hours
We’re kicking the week off with big news for each of the major 3PDs — Uber’s rolling out the robots, DoorDash has new ad tools and Grubhub’s gone green.
Today’s edition is brought to you by the HNGRY Summit.
Today:
Avride’s Robots Deliver Partnership with Uber
DoorDash Adds Ad Capabilities for Enterprise, CPG Customers
Chart Time | Late Night Dining Capitals
Grubhub Goes Green with DeliverZero
AUTONOMY | Avride Delivery Bots & Taxis Head to Uber
Uber has a new autonomous vehicle provider — Avride — about to go live on its network. The partnership kicks off with delivery robots in Austin, before expanding to Dallas and Jersey City; the two companies hope to eventually even deploy Avride’s robotaxis on Uber’s TNC network as well. While Avride may not be a household name, it has a storied history, having started as part of Russian tech giant Yandex’s self-driving initiative. Yandex, in turn bought some of Uber’s assets back in 2017. With Avride now spun out from Yandex as fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this is an interesting way to knit some disparate parts back together.
The Big Picture: The pace of new partnerships in the AV world has really sped up as of late, with Uber tying itself closer to players like Waymo and WeRide. (And Waymo, in turn, partnering with Hyundai for new vehicles.) With the 3PDs getting promiscuous, AV hardware cos are also looking to hedge their bets — see Serve’s recent partnership with Wing — which gives Serve some space from Uber and Wing some breathing room from DoorDash.
PARTNER | HNGRY Summit Returns to LA — 10/25
We’re excited to host a panel on kitchen and last-mile automation with leaders from Sweetgreen, Zipline, and Starship Technologies at HNGRY Summit on Friday, October 25th at ChowNow HQ in LA. Check out awesome panels, breakout sessions, and delicious bites from companies like Square, Tock, Amped Kitchens, Kismet Rotisserie, and more. Discounted tickets available for startups, restaurants, and CPGs here.
ADS | DoorDash Adds Capabilities for Enterprise, CPG Advertisers
As we like to say around these parts, some days it looks like food delivery is at best a breakeven business that exists to support a profitable restaurant advertising network… DoorDash is looking to double down on the enterprise marketing segment, with a suite of new tools in its Ads Manager: advanced targeting capabilities, marketing insights, new promos (like Spend $X/Get Y,) plus DMAs (regional marketing teams) and franchisees collaborative marketing capabilities. DD is also rolling out some new offerings for its CPG advertisers: offsite capabilities to help brands connect with new ready-to-buy consumers across the web and other digital platforms, sponsored brands for CPG to enable the discovery of curated products in new places for consumers, and a partnership with third-party omnichannel ad platform Skai.
The Big Picture: DoorDash’s new self-serve enterprise ad tools already have some impressive launch customers lined up, including Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse. On the CPG side, partners who have activated DoorDash’s offsite capabilities and include boozers Proper No. Twelve®, 1800®, and Jose Cuervo®. Beefing up its pitch to advertisers, DoorDash is calling itself the largest local commerce platform in North America, with over 37M+ active consumers across its main app and its European/Asian network on Wolt.
CHART TIME | San Francisco Can’t Stay Up for Supper
A fun new survey from Chef’s Pencil looks at the closing times of reservation-focused restaurants across the world. In a none too shocking development, San Francisco looks to be the earliest-to-close of any major North American market, meaning anyone who wants say Scoma’s after the sun sets will instead have to settle for getting some Subway seafood sandwiches delivered. While European metropoles of course offer late hours, the most night owl of dining cities actually look to be Cairo and Mumbai.
SUSTAINABILITY | DeliverZero Expands to Grubhub
Sustainable delivery packaging startup DeliverZero is expanding to Grubhub, breaking the news with a cheeky little Instagram update. The service is now live in the NYC metro area, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver, working with participating restaurants like Butcher’s Daughter, Cheebo Express and Burger Village. This expansion makes DeliverZero live on all major American 3PDs, having onboarded DoorDash in April, right after expanding its Uber Eats partnership to the West Coast (in an announcement made from the big stage at Curbivore 2024.)
The Big Picture: Plastic waste is a big problem, with American restaurants using hundreds of billions of individual pieces of single-use packaging on takeout and delivery annually, at a cost of nearly $24B/year. DeliverZero solves that problem by offering consumers reusable packaging, that can be brought back to any participating restaurant, where it’s then sanitized before being reused on another order. DeliverZero looks to keep its reverse logistics sustainable as well, working with DutchX to have cargo-bikes power its container collections.
A Few Good Links
NYC mobility leader Dawn Miller shares how startups can sell to gov. DoorDash launches private label brand The Essential. Chipotle heads to the UAE. Customers complain Starbucks not affordable. Grocers with big prepped food sections put pressure on restaurants (looks to be more of a West Coast phenomenon.) Seattle axes tip credit. ILA port strike ends, looks like all that bellyaching was for nothing. Gatik scales up in Texas and Toronto. Family Dollar accepting SNAP/EBT via Instacart. Giant Eagle turns to FlyBuy to cut delivery wait times. Insomnia celebrates 21 years of cookie delivery. Toyota invests half a B in Joby. Ola Electric’s stock slides. EVgo gets $1.1B loan from the Feds. Grubhub and Stride partner on portable benefits. Instacart gamifies Caper Carts. Uber rolling out ENSO’s EV-oriented green tires. Amazon looks to hire quarter million holiday hands. Presto brings on-demand delivery to Libya. Can you guess where these electric delivery vehicles were made?
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— Brought to you by the Curbivore Crew.
P.S. A little birdie tells us one of the big delivery platforms is teaming up with a beloved regional grocer… anyone want to guess who?