Reaction Catalyst - Ahti Heinla

Reaction Catalyst is an event series that connects the worlds best innovators, promoting solutions with global potential, with a global community of leaders, offering the influence to realize it.

Starship is the scalable, affordable, and environmentally friendly solution to delivery.

With a combination of mobile technology, autonomous robots, and partnerships with stores and restaurants Starship makes local delivery faster, smarter, and more cost-efficient.

Miri Pruzan, Reaction Founding Partner, spoke with Ahti Heinla, Co-Founder of Starship and Chief Architect of Skype.

Ahti Heinla, Co-Founder of Starship, with the delivery robot

Why did Reaction invest in Starship?

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the world right now. Within this climate crisis, transportation is the biggest contributor to global emissions, with cars being the biggest source. Vehicle emissions are only going to increase as demand for delivery increases unless we find a solution. Starship has the best strategy, team, and technology to win the fight against global emissions.

You had great success at Skype. Why did you decide to create Starship?

Skype and Starship are very different companies, but they are both radical ideas for their time. When we launched Skype in 2002, it was a radical thought that people would want to talk to a computer. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, video calls are part of the everyday work routine. When we launched Starship in 2014, ground delivery was the craze, and no one was thinking about robotic delivery. For both companies, we knew we could win, we won with Skype, and now we will win with Starship.

Where are you winning now? What is your immediate strategy to gain traction?

We know we will be delivering everything, everywhere, but we must start somewhere. This starting place is the college campus. We are currently in 15 campuses and have signed more to be announced soon. At universities, delivery hasn’t been practical because of the pedestrian environments and tight student budgets. This is our ideal market, and we are expanding exponentially.

The next growth horizon is grocery delivery in cities. There are a lot more competitors in this market, but Starship will win overall because of our efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Currently, Starship can reach over a million people through our university and city launches. Over a million people can download an app and get delivery via robot. For the other 6.9 billion people in the world, they think robotic delivery is something for the future, but we are accomplishing it now.

Many companies are competing. What is different about Starship? Why will Starship win?

While there are a lot of companies that are trying to build what we have, there is no doubt that Starship is the furthest along in terms of deliveries and profits. We are 10 times further ahead than our nearest competitor. To compete in this market a person only needs to build a robot and say it works. What is much more difficult is making autonomous delivery commercially successful and operationally sound to provide a solution which works every day, all the time.

What is Starship’s ability to deliver during winter and on subpar roads?

We deliver every day of the year, so winter is no obstacle for us. The robots were developed and assessed in Estonia which is known for snow, short days, and rainstorms. Every day for the last six years our robots have been delivering in Estonia.

When it comes to roads, the wheels on our robots are built so they can off-road through grass, go over curbs, and sustain a bump in the road. We have done successful deliveries on golf courses!

Off-roading? No problem! Starship can deliver on grass, snow, gravel, and uneven ground making their robots versatile and efficient.

How does Starship align with Reaction’s mission to scale technology that improves lives?

People want delivery, but the process with human curriers is not sustainable. Deliveries are typically done with cars which contribute to global pollution. A Starship robot uses less energy than a person walking! There is no comparison to any car or alternative delivery method when it comes to Starship and our environmentally friendly solution.

There is also the economic side where we want to make deliveries much more affordable and efficient. This allows deliveries to be made routinely to people you can’t go to the store or restaurant by themselves, such as the elderly or disabled. We are improving the lives of people by giving them more autonomy through technology.

For further information about Reaction please visit the Reaction website at reaction.global or contact the Reaction team at change@reaction.global.

About the Author

Samantha Allen is a Reaction Fellow from Chicago, Illinois.

About Reaction

Reaction is about creating exponential change. We are a global community of entrepreneurs, investors and executives who share a vision for a world where innovation can meaningfully change more lives in less time. Why now? Because more innovations will be created in more countries and more industries over the next decade than in the previous 50 years. Many will offer the potential to solve global issues. But will fail to reach the markets they could have benefited most. Reaction was founded by a global team of Stanford alumni who united to solve this problem together. Our mission is to measurably improve one billion lives, within a decade, by scaling innovations that will change the world.

Starship: The Robotic Delivery Solution