DoorDash customers in Los Angeles might soon have their food brought to them by one of Serve Robotics’ sidewalk delivery bots. The two companies on Thursday announced a multi-year partnership that would see them using autonomous robots to make deliveries across the U.S.
The tie-up comes a week after DoorDash unveiled Dot, an autonomous food delivery bot built by the company that’s first being deployed in the Phoenix area. Unlike Serve’s bots, which mainly operate on sidewalks, Dot can ferry food and small packages on roads, bike lanes and sidewalks at speeds up to 20 miles per hour.
Serve is the latest in a string of emerging tech partnerships for DoorDash, which has joined hands with companies like sidewalk bot startup Coco and drone startup Wing. According to Ashu Rege, VP of autonomy at DoorDash Labs, the company’s robotics and automation division, it’s all part of a broader plan to become a platform for multimodal deliveries.
DoorDash isn’t the first app company to ply such avenues. Uber has been striking partnerships with autonomous vehicle companies across its ride-hail, delivery and freight businesses, and Serve is one of those companies. Similar to how gig workers operate, Serve’s bots will work with both Uber and DoorDash simultaneously.
But DoorDash is doing something different here: it’s throwing its own hat in the ring.
Other companies have attempted this strategy, too. Uber and Lyft both tried and failed to operate both the technology stack and platform for autonomous ride-hailing. And AV startup Nuro started out with a similar vehicle to Dot before it realized that manufacturing is a capital sinkhole.
All three companies took the scenic route to realize that it’s more cost-effective to focus on their core technology and offerings.
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Rege thinks DoorDash will be different. The company plans to manufacture Dot at scale, but Rege declined to provide specific details. DoorDash had its first profitable year in 2024, and reported record profits in the first half of 2025, thanks to a 20% increase in delivery volumes compared to a year earlier. He argues that the company needs more ways to make deliveries if it’s going to continue serving its growing customer base.
Moreover, Rege thinks Dot brings something to the table that other form factors don’t. “We felt there was a gap. On the one end, you have sidewalk robots, and on the other hand robotaxis, which are great for moving people, but they do not address the delivery problem of that last 10 feet,” he said. “A burrito is not going to walk itself to your door. And for merchants, they don’t want to […] go find this robot that’s parked half a block away.”
While sidewalk robots may work well in dense urban environments, Rege said Dot will fill the gap in “dense suburban deliveries” within a range of three to five miles. Dot’s ability to traverse the roads and sidewalks is “a really key part,” he said.
Of course, a person can do all of this with ease, but DoorDash says it plans to reserve its human workforce for more “complex” restaurant, retail or grocery trips.
