Serve Robotics Acquires Vayu for AI-Powered Last-Mile Delivery Autonomy
Serve Robotics Inc. (Nasdaq: SERV), a prominent player in autonomous sidewalk delivery, has announced its acquisition of Vayu Robotics, Inc., a company at the forefront of urban robot navigation powered by advanced artificial intelligence models. This strategic move, finalized on Monday, August 18, 2025, is set to significantly advance Serve’s mission to redefine the future of last-mile delivery through pioneering AI foundation model-based autonomy.
The acquisition sees Serve Robotics integrating Vayu’s cutting-edge AI foundation models and simulation technology with its own extensive real-world operational dataset. This synergy aims to unlock safer, faster, and more generalizable navigation for Serve’s delivery robots, while also accelerating its expansion into new geographical markets and diverse use cases. A key objective highlighted by Serve Robotics is to drive down delivery costs, with an ambitious target of reaching just $1 per delivery.
Vayu Robotics brings a unique technological approach to the table, centered on creating a “common nervous system” for autonomous robots at scale. Their methodology involves developing a foundation model alongside low-cost, biology-inspired sensing. Notably, Vayu claims to be a pioneer in combining AI foundation models with lidar-less sensors for on-road operations, leveraging its “Vayu Drive” transformer-based mobility foundation model and “Vayu Sense” passive sensor technology. This innovative sensor system is even capable of identifying challenging road conditions such as water, ice, snow, and oil. The addition of Vayu’s scalable simulation-powered data engine will enhance Serve’s autonomy training capabilities by fusing real and simulated data, crucial for developing more robust and capable AI models. As part of the acquisition, Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and a lead investor in Vayu, will join Serve’s Advisory Board, lending significant strategic depth. Vayu’s founding team, including CEO Anand Gopalan, Mahesh Krishnamurthi, and Nitish Srivastava—who bring extensive experience from companies like Apple SPG and Velodyne, as well as Geoffrey Hinton’s AI lab—will also join Serve Robotics, bolstering its engineering and technological prowess.
Serve Robotics, spun off from Uber in 2021, has already established itself as a leader in the autonomous sidewalk delivery space, having successfully completed tens of thousands of deliveries for major partners such as Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. The company currently operates over 400 robots and has a significant agreement to deploy up to 2,000 delivery robots on the Uber Eats platform across multiple U.S. markets by the end of 2025. This acquisition is expected to accelerate the deployment of Serve’s third-generation robots, which are powered by the NVIDIA Orin edge AI platform.
The move by Serve Robotics aligns with broader industry trends in last-mile delivery. The global robotic last-mile delivery market is projected for substantial growth, with revenues forecasted to soar from $260 million in 2025 to over $1.74 billion by 2032, and the total number of robotic deliveries reaching 25,000 by that time. This growth is driven by the persistent challenge of high last-mile delivery costs, increasing consumer demand for speed and convenience, and the inherent efficiency and lower carbon emissions offered by autonomous mobile robots. The integration of advanced AI and machine learning, particularly foundation models, is seen as a critical enabler for real-time autonomous navigation and optimizing delivery routes. By combining Serve’s operational experience and vast real-world data with Vayu’s pioneering work in AI foundation models and simulation, Serve Robotics aims to solidify its leadership in the burgeoning “physical AI” landscape and accelerate the widespread adoption of autonomous delivery.