Share This Article
Zipline’s valuation reached $2.75 billion
Startup Zipline, which provides drug delivery services using drones, received a $250 million investment. Another round of funding was so successful for the company, raising its valuation to $2.75 billion.
Zipline operates in Africa, delivering drugs and various medical products via drones. The company plans to use the proceeds to expand its logistics networks and enter the U.S. market. The startup was founded in 2014, and its activities involve a full range of services, including the development of drones, special software and terrain-specific routes for landing and launching vehicles. However, Zipline is not positioning itself as a manufacturing company, manufacturing drones was rather dictated by necessity, as in the beginning of its activity the first drones of the startup literally crumbled after one flight. Therefore, it was decided to take over the manufacturing process in order to make it cheaper to operate. Although Zipline excels at developing drones and software for it, it primarily boasts of creating supply chains.
In Rwanda, Zipline works with UPS, in Japan it is partnered with Toyota Group Corporation, and in the United States with Novant Health and Walmart.
The startup got a good jump-start during the pandemic, when the need for medical supplies increased and the ability to buy them was limited. Drone delivery became extremely relevant for people who were in the hospital.
Zipline executives are not discarding the possibility of expanding the range of products it delivers, but in the near future it will still be exclusively medical supplies. In the past six months, the startup has signed agreements with five distribution centers in Nigeria, and four companies that are in Ghana.
Zipline’s 2019 valuation was $1.2 billion, an extremely impressive figure for companies in this segment.
The first medication delivery program was launched in Rwanda in 2016, after $25 million in funding. The company’s main goal was to solve the problem of providing people with the necessary goods, and Zipline primarily acted as a courier, and then it had to master the production of drones as needed. The startup has also succeeded in this area – its drones have made more than 15,000 deliveries of goods.
Zipline is the only national-scale drone delivery service in the world, and its potential is still high and interesting in terms of globalization.