From Campus to City: The Kiwibot Growth Timeline (2017–2025)
- 1. Company Origins & Founding 📜 2015 - 2017 Expansion Across Campuses 🌱 2018 – 2021 Urban Pilots & Service Scaling 🚀 2022 – 2024 Technology Expansion & Acquisitions 🌐 2024 – 2025 From kiwibot.com to robot.com 💡 2025 – Kiwibot: Scaling Sidewalks Year After Year A Look at the Evolution, Milestones, and Market Impact From 2017 to 2025
- 2. Company Origins & Founding 📜 2015 – 2017 2015 Felipe Chávez realises food delivery is expensive in the U.S. compared to Colombia and starts a courier service called Lulu in Bogotá with Sergio Pachón. 2016 Chavez, Pachón, and David Rodríguez form Kiwi Campus during a fellowship at UC Berkeley’s SkyDeck incubator. 2017 Prototype Kiwibots debut on UC Berkeley campus in March; a fleet of 20 operates by May. Early units make up to 10,000 deliveries by May 2018.
- 3. Expansion Across Campuses 🌱 2018 – 2021 Early 2018 Stanford campus sees Kiwibots; by mid‑2018, operations include Berkeley-area neighborhoods and parts of San Jose and Palo Alto. 2019 A delivery robot catches fire in Berkeley due to a battery failure; the company redesigns its platform and renames to Kiwibot, launching Kiwi Express. 2021 Launch at New Mexico State University; a $7.5 M seed round boosts fleet growth; active at 27+ campuses.
- 4. Urban Pilots & Service Scaling 🚀 2022 – 2024 2022 Expanded into city deployments in San Jose, Los Angeles (Santa Monica), Miami/Dade County, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Feb 2022 Partnered with Sodexo to scale Kiwibot campus services; surpasses 200,000+ deliveries. Company reports 400+ robots worldwide and over 150,000 orders. 2023 Campus presence grows to ~50; new deployments at USI, UND, Howard University, and others.
- 5. Technology Expansion & Acquisitions 🌐 2024 – 2025 April 2024 Acquires Taipei-based AUTO Mobility Solutions to bolster chip production amid U.S.–China tensions. September 2024 Acquires Tampa-based Nickelytics for $25 million, integrating its ad-tech platform to convert 500+ bots into data-driven mobile billboards 2025 Fleet exceeds 500 robots globally; active across 50+ U.S. campuses and urban areas.
- 6. From kiwibot.com to robot.com 💡 2025 – What next? A New Identity for Global Scale “Kiwibot is now Robot.com a name as bold and universal as their mission.” Simplifies branding as they expand beyond campuses into cities and new verticals. Automating the physical world. More to come from robot.com this summer.