Raphael Thys
Zipline drones delivered medical supplies in Rwanda in 2022.Getty Images
The funding, revealed in a filing, shows that the logistics company priced a $330 million Series F funding round in April.
In a market environment where few startup unicorns have raised funding at higher valuations, drone delivery startup Zipline is an exception.
The South San Francisco-based company is raising $330 million in a new funding round, according to two sources and a filing obtained by Forbes. The funding values Zipline at about $4.2 billion, a 55% increase from its $2.7 billion valuation reached two years ago.
In an April 10 filing in Delaware, the company revealed a Series F funding round of that size that priced Zipline at $40.20 per share. The filing also included a Series F-1 extension of up to $20 million that could still be rolled into the round, meaning the exact total raised by Zipline could still fluctuate, according to one of the sources. The filing made no mention of a lead investor, nor could one be identified as of publication.
In a statement, Zipline confirmed it had raised new funding. “We recently closed our Series F funding round at an increased valuation, which involved several new and existing investors,” the company wrote. “We are well capitalized to continue to grow our operations, including launching our new home delivery service.”
Past investors in the company, including Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Katalyst Ventures, GV, Pactolus Ventures, Emerging Capital Partners and Reinvent Capital, did not respond to comment requests on Friday.
The cash infusion comes as Zipline announced a new autonomous drone, the Platform 2, that it said could carry eight pounds of cargo at a range of 10 miles. Most ecommerce packages weigh five pounds or less, cofounder and CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton said in an interview last month. The aircraft, also known as a P2 Zip, is capable of charging on a docking station that resembles a lamppost. The company announced fast-casual food chain Sweetgreen, Michigan Medicine and several other health systems as partners.
Zipline cofounders Keller Rinaudo Cliffton and Keenan WyrobekCourtesy of Zipline
Zipline’s success to date has come in part from pursuing its technology in the developing world, pending further U.S. regulatory approval. The company began deploying its autonomous delivery drones in Rwanda in 2016, then expanded to Ghana; in the early months of the pandemic, business surged as it delivered blood and Covid-19 vaccines in those African nations. “Most people think that advanced technology is going to start in the U.S. and then trickle its way out to these other countries,” cofounder and CEO Keller Rinaudo told Forbes at the time. “That is not what we’re seeing.”
According to a recent report, the company now operates in Cote d’Ivoire, Japan, Kenya and Nigeria, too. Zipline is active in Arkansas, North Carolina and Utah in the U.S. That slower expansion stateside was boosted after Zipline received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration to use its drones to deliver Covid-19 relief supplies in 2020. It began piloting commercial deliveries in partnership with Walmart the following year. But wide-scale U.S. operations remain contingent on FAA clearance. Those regulatory hurdles are getting closer to resolution, providing a potentially lucrative business opportunity for investors who came to the negotiating table in recent weeks.
Rinaudo Cliffton, a former professionally ranked rock climber, previously told Forbes that he co-founded the company in 2013 with Keenan Wyrobek, who is its chief technology officer. The company’s origins, however, date back to Romotive, a robotics toy startup that Rinaudo Cliffton launched in 2011 as part of former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project in Las Vegas. (You can read much more about that project, and Hsieh’s tragic end, in WONDER BOY, a new book by current and former Forbes reporters David Jeans and Angel Au-Yeung.)
After pivoting to drones and moving to the Bay Area, Zipline’s cofounders initially aimed to corner the medical supply market, rather than retail goods. Alfred Lin, the Sequoia partner and former Zappos executive who ranked no. 7 on Forbes’ Midas List, led a Series A investment into the startup in 2015.
The company later raised from firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Slow Ventures, Katalyst Ventures and GV, the venture firm of Google parent Alphabet, among others. Pactolus Ventures, Intercorp, Emerging Capital Partners and Reinvent Capital had led its previous funding round in 2021. With the new funding, Zipline has raised more than $900 million to date, per data from startup tracker PitchBook.