Zipline Announces $1.5B Capital Raise At Post-Money Valuation Of $21.5B; Working With Walmart To Launch 300 Additional Sites

Round led by Paradigm, WCM Investment Management, and Layer Global with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Uber, Tiger Global, J.P. Morgan, ARK Invest, and Salesforce Ventures. 

Zipline will use the capital to expand its U.S. manufacturing facilities and ramp hiring as it builds a nationwide drone delivery network. Demand for delivery has never been higher, but ground delivery is constrained by traffic, aging infrastructure, and rising costs. Roads can’t keep up. The future of delivery is in the sky.

Walmart and Zipline are now working together to launch 300 additional sites as part of a new national multi-year agreement with potential to grow further. Uber is targeting one million deliveries a day with Zipline by 2029. Enterprise leaders and small businesses alike are investing in drone delivery to unlock growth.

Hundreds of businesses are now growing their revenue through Zipline orders. Dozens of new businesses are joining Zipline’s network weekly. Existing partners are expanding their relationships with Zipline to include hundreds or thousands of new locations.

A cohort of Zipline's longest-tenured restaurants shared their results to date: between March and October, Zipline’s share of their delivery revenue grew from 10.8% to 34.9%. Zipline orders were incremental and did not reduce demand from other platforms. The restaurants saw a 26% increase in delivery GMV, with 80% of the increase coming from Zipline orders.

Drone delivery is now a routine convenience in Zipline’s metros, with more than one million deliveries made within the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex alone this year. Customers choose Zipline because it's fast, convenient, and quiet. In October, the median Zipline order was delivered 19 minutes after checkout, compared to 30+ minutes for traditional delivery. Restaurants with quick prep times are even faster: the median bakery order arrived 10 minutes after checkout.

By using the sky for automated deliveries, Zipline expands the number of customers businesses can reach. Today, only 5% of U.S. restaurant orders are for delivery. In practice, those orders are constrained to customers within a couple miles of the store, as cost and travel times become less attractive for longer ranges. Zipline delivers without causing traffic, helping businesses serve customers. Companies like Wonder are seizing this opportunity by building new storefronts and kitchens that are optimized specifically for Zipline.