The Avride Sidewalk Bots will begin delivering restaurant orders and grocery stores in central Tokyo this week through collaboration with the Rakuten e -commerce giant, the latest commercial expansion from Yandex Spinout in northeast Asia.
Austin -based vehicles are one of the four works by Nebius Group, a company based in the Netherlands called Yandex NV that sold its Russian businesses in 2024 for about $ 5.2 billion.
Since then, Avride has pushed forward with the autonomous development of vehicle technology through the bots of sidewalks and self-driving cars. And progress has been made, mainly with agreements with large companies such as Uber and now Rakuten in Japan.
Avride has a small business delivery business Seoul, South KoreaAnd it also tests the autonomous vehicles – which still have human safety drivers behind the steering wheel. Last year, the company began to go through the long certification process in Japan in an effort to expand its imprint in the area. Now, with full certification, Avride is starting commercial businesses in the country. The Japanese launch will be small to start – only 10 robots for now, with plans to expand over time.
Meanwhile, Avride is escalating in the United States. Today, the company has about 100 pavement delivery bots in operation at the University of Ohio through collaboration with GrubHub.
Last year, Avride secured an agreement with Uber covering the sidewalks and autonomous cars. The multiannual agreement is part of a series of autonomous corporate relationships related to the vehicle that Uber has locked up last year.
Today, Uber eats customers in the center of Austin, Dallas and Jersey City can deliver their food through one of the Avride robots. Companies are planning to bring Avride self-guiding cars to the Uber platform in Dallas later this year.
