Most delivery automations are parked on the side of the road. But for cars and Zurich’s robotics startup RIVR, the real challenge and opportunity lies in the last 100 yards from the van to the door.

In a pilot program launched in Austin on Tuesday, RIVR’s four-wheeled staircase climbed up the delivery robot, which CEO and founder Marko Bjelonic described as “a dog on a skate” that would be delivered directly from Veho’s van to the customer’s front door.

They specifically told TechCrunch that the companies started to be small. There is only one highly supervised robot that works properly every day, running five to six hours throughout Austin. But both companies see it as a key step in solving unique slicing in the end-to-end automated delivery journey.

"Robot technology has an impact by actually solving these very challenging problems that are actually very easy for humans, but difficult for robots. We see (RIVR) as a distinction, almost the next evolutionary step for sidewalk robots."

The partnership with Veho also provides RIVR with the opportunity to test its technology and accumulates the data necessary to establish a general physical AI framework.

"What we see in the robot space is that there are data barriers because Chatgpt and other chatbots use the internet as training data, and self-driving cars have thousands of cars on the street that can attach sensors to and start collecting data," Bjelonic told TechCrunch. "But in the world of robotics, there is a lack of this data set, so you need to find meaningful use cases that can solve the real problem, and then you can start collecting all the data to make these bots smarter."

For Veho, offering brands like Sephora, Saks, Hellofresh and more, this partnership is an opportunity to test automation from vans to customer doors. Ultimately, this may immediately make more delivery, especially in dense urban areas where both the driver and the robot can mark a specific street at the same time. Bjelonic said RIVR's "robot assistant" could also "reduce the workload of these drivers" by taking over the body's demanding tasks that lead to the door, Bjelonic said.

During the Austin trial, RIVR staff will accompany the robot to ensure safety and quality of delivery. Bjelonic told TechCrunch these robots can run autonomously, but if the remote operator is stuck, the remote operator will be able to take advantage of it.

Fred Cook said Austin pilots will start in a residential area in Northwest Austin and then expand into dense areas of town. In the future, Cook said, he could imagine pairing vehicles with certain types of vehicles with robot charging stations to get them working all day.

RIVR hopes to expand its learning capabilities with Veho to 100 robots by next year to 2027. The startup is currently operating in the UK through a partnership with delivery platform EVRI. RIVR raised more than $25 million, including a round led by Jeff Bezos, which estimated the company's $100 million in the round.