Sam Altman-backed Coco Robotics raises $80M

In Brief

Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics, a startup building last-mile delivery robots, announced it raised $80 million on Wednesday.

The funding round included angel investors Sam Altman and Max Altman, both returning investors, in addition to VC firms like Pelion Venture Partners and Offline Ventures, among others.

This brings the company’s total funding to more than $120 million. The company last raised a $36

million Series A round in 2021.

Coco’s zero-emissions robots can hold 90 liters worth of groceries or goods and have made more than 500,000 deliveries since they hit the streets in 2020, the company said. It says it works with national retailers including Subway, Wingstop and Jack in the Box.

Sam Altman’s financial interest in Coco is clear. While he’s personally providing capital to the company, OpenAI apparently gets a benefit too. Coco announced a partnership with OpenAI in March which allows Coco to use OpenAI while the AI company gains the real-world data the robots collect to train its models.

The company was founded in 2020 by Brad Squicciarini and Zach Rash.

TechCrunch reached out to Coco for more information.

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