Autonomous Delivery Vehicles Just Got Closer — And This $1 Billion Startup Is Leading the Charge
The race to put self-driving delivery vehicles on streets and bike lanes just got more serious. Also, a micromobility startup born inside Rivian and spun out in 2025, has announced a landmark partnership with DoorDash to develop autonomous delivery vehicles. The deal comes alongside a fresh $200 million funding round, pushing Also past a $1 billion valuation and signaling that last-mile autonomous delivery is no longer a distant promise.
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| Credit: Also |
What the Also and DoorDash Deal Actually Means
This is not a simple business agreement. DoorDash participated directly in Also's Series C funding round, and as part of the deal, the food delivery giant earned a seat on Also's board of directors. That level of investment signals genuine long-term commitment from DoorDash, not just a headline-grabbing pilot program.
The Series C was led by Greenoaks Capital, a returning investor with clear confidence in Also's direction. The raise brings Also's total funding to $505 million, a remarkable figure for a company that only recently graduated from being an internal skunkworks project. For context, Also started in 2022 as an idea inside Rivian, originally centered around building an electric bicycle. It has grown very quickly into something far more ambitious.
How Also Went From Electric Bikes to Autonomous Delivery
Also's origin story is genuinely unusual. The company began as a secretive side project within Rivian, with the EV automaker initially focused on designing a stylish electric bicycle. That early design effort even involved collaboration with a renowned design firm connected to a legendary product designer. The resulting e-bike is described as high-end and distinctive in appearance.
But e-bikes were never going to be the full story. Also soon began developing small, pedal-assist delivery vehicles built to carry commercial cargo. These compact electric vehicles are engineered to haul more than 400 pounds of packages while remaining slim enough to ride in a bike lane alongside cyclists. That balance of payload capacity and urban maneuverability is exactly what makes them attractive to delivery companies like DoorDash and retail giants managing high-volume last-mile logistics.
The announcement with DoorDash marks the first public confirmation that Also is working on autonomous versions of these vehicles — a significant step up from human-operated cargo e-bikes.
Amazon Was Already Paying Attention
Before DoorDash entered the picture, Amazon had already placed an order for thousands of Also's small electric delivery vehicles. That order, announced late last year, immediately established Also as a credible commercial player rather than just another well-funded startup with a concept. Amazon's involvement matters for another reason too: the e-commerce giant is a major investor in and strategic partner with Rivian, Also's parent company before the spinoff.
This web of relationships — Rivian, Amazon, and now DoorDash — gives Also a rare advantage. It is not simply building vehicles and searching for customers. It is operating inside an ecosystem of companies already deeply invested in its success, each with enormous scale in delivery and logistics.
The Autonomy Question: Who Provides the Self-Driving Tech?
Here is where things get genuinely interesting. The partnership with DoorDash raises a compelling question that has not yet been answered publicly: who will actually supply the autonomous technology that powers Also's delivery vehicles?
There are at least two possible paths. First, Also could leverage Rivian's own autonomy technology. Rivian has been quietly building out serious self-driving capabilities, including a custom silicon chip and proprietary autonomy computer designed to make its vehicles increasingly capable without relying on third-party technology. Rivian's founder has already suggested that a related Rivian spinoff focused on industrial AI would use this chip. Also, with its close ties to Rivian, could plausibly follow the same path.
The second option is DoorDash itself. The company has its own autonomy division and has spent several years developing a fully autonomous delivery vehicle equipped with lidar, radar, and camera sensors. That vehicle can navigate roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks on its own and is already operating in the Metro Phoenix area, reaching speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. Its approachable, colorful design with cartoon-like eyes has made it one of the more recognizable autonomous vehicles in consumer delivery.
It is entirely possible that DoorDash's in-house autonomy expertise becomes the foundation for Also's self-driving hardware, combining Also's urban vehicle design with DoorDash's real-world autonomous systems.
Why Urban Autonomous Delivery Is Having Its Moment Now
The timing of this announcement is not coincidental. Several forces are converging to make autonomous last-mile delivery commercially viable right now, not in five years.
Urban congestion is getting worse in major cities across the world, and traditional delivery vans are increasingly seen as part of the problem. Vehicles that fit in bike lanes sidestep much of that congestion without requiring dedicated infrastructure. At the same time, labor costs in delivery and logistics have climbed steadily, making the economics of autonomous vehicles more compelling for companies that depend on high delivery volumes.
Advances in sensor technology, particularly the falling cost of lidar and the improving accuracy of camera-based systems, have also reduced the hardware expense of building autonomous vehicles to a level where commercial deployment at scale is genuinely feasible. Also is entering this window at precisely the right moment, backed by enough capital and strategic partners to move quickly.
What a $505 Million War Chest Unlocks
Raising $505 million in total funding is not just a milestone on paper. It gives Also the resources to do several things simultaneously: scale manufacturing of its cargo vehicles, invest in the research and development required for autonomous systems, build out the retail and service infrastructure that comes with selling premium electric vehicles, and forge additional commercial partnerships beyond DoorDash and Amazon.
Also has said it intends to draw on Rivian's manufacturing expertise, retail presence, and supply chain economies of scale. That relationship could dramatically reduce the cost and timeline of bringing autonomous delivery vehicles to market compared to a startup building everything from scratch.
The involvement of Eclipse, an early backer that has also invested in Rivian's industrial AI spinoff, suggests that the investors shaping Also's future see a coherent technology ecosystem taking shape, with Also as a key commercial node within it.
Delivery Is Being Reinvented From the Ground Up
What is happening with Also and DoorDash is part of a broader shift in how goods move through cities. The traditional model — a large van, a human driver, a stack of cardboard boxes — is being challenged from multiple directions simultaneously. Autonomous sidewalk robots handle the final few meters. Electric cargo bikes handle neighborhood distribution. And now, purpose-built autonomous electric cargo vehicles designed to operate in bike lanes may handle the crucial middle layer of urban delivery.
Also sits precisely in that middle layer. Its vehicles are too large to be dismissed as novelty gadgets and too small to face the regulatory and infrastructure hurdles of full-size autonomous trucks. That positioning, deliberate or not, puts Also in a genuinely advantageous space in the autonomous delivery landscape.
The DoorDash partnership, the Amazon order, and the $1 billion valuation are all markers pointing in the same direction. Autonomous delivery vehicles are coming to city streets, and Also is building them.
Compiled from company announcements and publicly available funding disclosures. All valuation figures reflect stated post-funding estimates.
