Coco Robotics, a Los Angeles-based startup, has announced that it has obtained a new $80 million funding round from its lead investor SNR, along with existing angel investors Sam Altman and Max Altman, Pelion Venture Partners, and Offline Ventures. With this new investment in the company, Coco Robotics has raised over $120 million since its founding in 2020.
Company and Its Robots
Coco Robotics was founded by Brad Squicciarini and Zach Rash to create zero-emissions, cooler-sized delivery robots to assist in last-mile logistics for urban areas. The delivery robots can hold up to 90 liters of groceries or goods, and the company has created/fulfilled over 500,000 deliveries from Miami to Chicago to Los Angeles to Helsinki. Coco Robotics has partnered with retailers and food chains like Subway, Wingstop, Jack in the Box, DoorDash, and Uber Eats, to gain early market access.
Strategic AI Partnership
In March of 2025, Coco Robotics announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI, which allows Coco Robotics to use OpenAI’s technology to offer robots better navigation and decision-making capabilities. OpenAI has a partnership with Coco Robotics, which provides OpenAI with real world robot data to train its AI models and in turn benefit both robots and its AI, creating a complementary service. Interestingly, Sam Altman personally invested in Coco Robotics. He was not involved in the discussions leading to the partnership between OpenAI and Coco Robotics.
Scaling Up
Coco Robotics’s CEO Zach Rash said they plan on scaling the Coco Robotics fleet from 1,300 robots presently to 10,000 by 2026, with an expected greater footprint in large cities in the US and Europe. This scale of growth indicates how strong demand is for sustainable and efficient alternatives to last mile delivery solutions, which demand is only getting stronger as urbanization increases and e-commerce is becoming more and more prevalent.
Why it Matters
The measures Coco Robotics is taking signify a relatively substantial shift toward automation and sustainability of delivery logistics. The zero emissions robots mean not only do they lower carbon footprints, but also decrease congestion on urban streets, and the lack of onsite labor when doing delivery. Now that they have considerable funding and announced their AI partnership, they are properly set up to be at the leading edge of autonomous deliveries.
Author’s opinion:
Coco Robotics is positioned well to advance on the opportunities that are emerging with the combination of AI and robotics in urban logistics. They have great investor backing and they have defined their route to growth.
News Writer