Nuro

Last updated

Nuro, Inc.
Company type Private
Industry Robotics
Founded2016;9 years ago (2016)
Founders
  • Jiajun Zhu
  • Dave Ferguson
Headquarters
Mountain View, California
,
United States
Key people
Jiajun Zhu (CEO)
Number of employees
1,200 (2022) [1]
Website nuro.ai

Nuro, Inc. is an American autonomous vehicle technology company based in Mountain View, California. Founded in 2016 by Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson, [2] Nuro develops autonomous delivery vehicles and became the first company to receive an autonomous exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). [3]

Contents

History

The company was founded by engineers of Google's self-driving car project, Waymo. Jiajun Zhu served as the principal software engineer and Dave Ferguson joined in 2011 as the principal machine learning engineer. [4] [5] Both left Waymo in 2016 and founded Nuro that September. [6]

Nuro officially launched and showcased its first product, an electric self-driving local commerce delivery vehicle, in January 2018 with $92 million in funding from Greylock Partners and Gaorong Capital. [7] Known as the R1, it weighed 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and was just over 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, about half the width of a sedan. [8] This vehicle was designed to carry only cargo, with space for 12 grocery bags in the first model. [8]

In June 2018, Nuro announced its first partnership with Kroger to test the fully autonomous delivery of groceries. [9]

The pilot launched on August 16, 2018, in Scottsdale, Arizona at a Fry's Food and Drug store. Initially, self-driving Toyota Prius cars were used for the pilot. [10] [11] [12] On December 18, 2018, the R1 was officially launched into the pilot. [13]

In February 2019, Nuro raised $940 million from SoftBank Group, which valued the company at $2.7 billion. [14]

On June 17, 2019, Nuro announced its partnership with Domino's Pizza [15] to launch in Houston later that year. [16]

In February 2020, Nuro began testing the R2, the second generation of self-driving vehicles, in Houston, Texas. [17] In April 2020, Nuro announced that the R2 prototype was being used to transport medical supplies around medical facilities in California. [18] The R2 was designed with no steering wheel, side view mirrors, or pedals. [19]

The company began prescription delivery through CVS Pharmacy in May 2020. [20] In November 2020, Nuro announced that they raised $500 million in their Series C funding round led by T. Rowe Price, with a post-money valuation of $5 billion. [21]

In December 2020, Nuro acquired self-driving trucking startup Ike Robotics. [22] Over 55 Ike employees joined Nuro's staff after the acquisition. [23] [24]

Nuro announced its compact autonomous vehicle R3 design in January 2021. [25]

In August 2021, Nuro announced that it would spend $40 million on the construction of a manufacturing facility and test track for its self-driving robot vehicles, located in southern Nevada. [26] In December 2021, Nuro announced a partnership to commercially deliver 7-Eleven goods. [27]

In September 2022, Uber and Nuro announced a 10-year partnership for autonomous food deliveries, starting in California and Texas. [28] In November 2022, Nuro laid off 20 percent of its staff, or approximately 300 employees. [1] In May 2023, Nuro laid off 30 percent of its staff, or approximately 340 employees. [29]

In February 2024, the company launched a collaboration with Arm Holdings to develop its third-generation autonomous delivery vehicle. [30]

In July 2025, a partnership was established between Nuro, Uber, and Lucid Motors to launch a robotaxi fleet. Uber will purchase and operate Lucid Gravity SUV vehicles outfitted with Nuro Driver autonomous driving technology. [31] [32] The partnership anticipates launching its first vehicle in 2026, with plans to deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis over the next six years. [31] [32]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Hawkins, Andrew J. (November 18, 2022). "Robot delivery startup Nuro is laying off 20 percent of its workers". The Verge . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  2. ↑ Hawkins, Andrew J. (January 30, 2018). "Two ex-Google engineers built an entirely different kind of self-driving car". The Verge . Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  3. ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (May 22, 2020). "Autonomous delivery companies stress need for clearer rules on deployment". VentureBeat . Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  4. ↑ Davies, Alex (June 28, 2018). "Get Yer Bread and Milk From Kroger's Cute New Delivery Robot". WIRED . ISSN   1059-1028.
  5. ↑ Bergen, Mark (June 11, 2018). "Nuro's Driverless Cars Don't Have to Worry About Passenger Safety". Bloomberg.com .
  6. ↑ Bhuiyan, Johana (September 15, 2016). "Meet the startup that two of Google's top self-driving engineers left to create". Recode . Vox . Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  7. ↑ "California start-up Nuro unveils autonomous delivery van, raises $92 million". Reuters . San Francisco. Reuters. January 30, 2018. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  8. 1 2 Davies, Alex (January 30, 2018). "Nuro's Self-Driving R-1 Doesn't Drive You. It Drives Stuff". Wired . ISSN   1059-1028. Archived from the original on July 12, 2021. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  9. ↑ Dickey, Megan Rose (June 28, 2018). "Self-driving car startup Nuro teams up with Kroger for same-day grocery delivery". TechCrunch . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  10. ↑ Dickey, Megan Rose (August 16, 2018). "Nuro and Kroger are deploying self-driving cars for grocery delivery in Arizona today". TechCrunch . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  11. ↑ Pollack, Neal (August 28, 2018). "Road-Testing the First Autonomous Car Grocery Delivery Service". The Drive. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  12. ↑ Rosenholtz, Jared (December 26, 2020). "The Toyota Prius Will Drive Itself Before Any Tesla". CarBuzz. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  13. ↑ Lee, Timothy B. (December 18, 2018). "Kroger-owned grocery store begins fully driverless deliveries". Ars Technica . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  14. ↑ "Driverless delivery startup Nuro gets $940 million SoftBank investment". Reuters . Reuters. February 11, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  15. ↑ Davies, Alex (June 17, 2019). "Nuro's Pizza Robot Will Bring You a Domino's Pie". WIRED . ISSN   1059-1028.
  16. ↑ Murphy, Mike (June 17, 2019). "Dominos is about to start delivering pizzas with autonomous robots". Quartz . Retrieved June 21, 2019. Nuro will deliver Domino's pizza with its robots in Houston
  17. ↑ "Self-driving delivery van ditches 'human controls'". BBC News . BBC. February 6, 2020. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  18. ↑ Hawkins, Andrew (April 22, 2020). "Nuro is using delivery robots to help health care workers fighting COVID-19 – The self-driving delivery company is operating at two field hospitals in California". The Verge . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  19. ↑ McFarland, Matt (February 6, 2020). "Autonomous delivery companies stress need for clearer rules on deployment". CNN Business . Washington, DC: CNN. CNN. Retrieved January 21, 2020. US clears the way for this self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals
  20. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (May 28, 2020). "Nuro's self-driving vehicles to deliver prescriptions for CVS Pharmacy". TechCrunch . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  21. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (November 9, 2020). "Autonomous delivery startup Nuro hits $5 billion valuation on fresh funding of $500 million". TechCrunch .
  22. ↑ Schubarth, Cromwell (December 23, 2020). "Self-driving delivery unicorn Nuro picks up Ike Robotics". Silicon Valley Business Journal. American City Business Journals . Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  23. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (December 23, 2020). "Nuro acquires autonomous trucking startup Ike". TechCrunch . Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  24. ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (December 23, 2020). "Nuro acquires self-driving truck startup Ike". VentureBeat . Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  25. ↑ Wessling, Brianna (January 12, 2022). "Nuro unveils third-generation autonomous delivery vehicle". The Robot Report. Retrieved October 21, 2025.
  26. ↑ Hawkins, Andrew (August 26, 2021). "Nuro is building a factory and test track in Nevada for its autonomous delivery robots – The self-driving startup is dramatically expanding its footprint". The Verge . Retrieved September 1, 2021.
  27. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (December 1, 2021). "Nuro and 7-Eleven to pilot autonomous delivery service in California". TechCrunch . Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  28. ↑ "Uber and Nuro Announce 10-Year Partnership for Autonomous Food Deliveries Starting in California and Texas". PR Newswire . San Francisco. PRNewswire. September 8, 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
  29. ↑ "Nuro lays off 30 percent of staff, shifts focus to R&D". Engadget. May 12, 2023. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  30. ↑ Hawkins, Andrew J. (February 22, 2024). "Nuro gets a leg up from Arm in launching its third-generation delivery robot". The Verge. Retrieved October 21, 2025.
  31. 1 2 "Uber Plans Fleet of 20,000 Robotaxis in Deal with Lucid, Nuro".
  32. 1 2 bio, See full. "Uber Unveils Global Robotaxi Plan With Lucid and Nuro". CNET. Retrieved October 21, 2025.
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