Ottonomy’s new delivery robot gets a parcel vending machine • TechCrunch

Robots are slowly but surely conquering this year’s CES. At today’s press preview, Ottonomy debuted a new model added to the New York-based company’s army of delivery robots. Yeti stands out from other Ottobot models mainly due to the addition of an intelligent automatic delivery mechanism designed to eliminate the need for a person to be present to receive the package. The startup calls the product “the first fully autonomous unattended delivery robot on the market.”

Once at its destination, the last mile delivery robot can drop its contents on a doorstep or transfer it to a compatible locker for safekeeping until the human arrives to pick it up. Another interesting angle here is the potential for product returns – specifically, a customer could use the bot to send the unwanted product back to the original seller.

Yeti follows the late 2022 addition of another robot, Ottobot 2.0, which brings some cool customization options to the table, including the ability to swap out different modular bins for different types of deliveries.

The company has a number of concurrent programs in cities around the world, including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Oslo and Madrid. It is also striving to expand to other markets in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Here in the US, it’s partnered with Verizon.

“During the validation processes, we conducted pilots with airports, retailers and postal services, which gave us the deep insights we needed on the most effective use cases and scalability. “, says co-founder and CEO Ritukar Vijay. “Through our strategic alignment with Verizon and other companies, we are uniquely positioned to fill the void that companies like Amazon and Fedex have been unable to fill. As demand and use cases for unattended autonomous delivery continue to grow, we are well positioned to deliver robots as a service to restaurants, retailers and beyond.

Ottonomy announced a fundraising of $3.3 million last August.