Serve Robotics acquires assets of Voysys to support autonomous delivery

Sidewalk delivery company Serve Robotics Inc. today announced that it has acquired the assets of Phantom Auto Inc. and its subsidiary, Voysys AB, a pioneer in ultra-low-latency video streaming, connectivity, and teleoperation technology. Serve said the acquisition enhances its technology stack to support its rapidly growing fleet of autonomous delivery robots. The assets were acquired for cash consideration of about $5.75 million.

Founded in 2014, Voysys provides video and data streaming connections for autonomous vehicles, machinery, and robots over heterogeneous networks.

“Reliable connectivity to enable teleoperation or tele-assist is pretty critical to [SAE] Level 4 as you scale a fleet into many different cities, many different neighborhoods,” said Dr. Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. “We are in five cities already, and we’re on track to be in six by the end of the year.”

“So having this be reliable as you deploy 2,000 robots was super critical. It was a problem we absolutely had to solve,” he told The Robot Report.

Serve Robotics was already a customer of Voysys when Phantom Auto went bankrupt last year, and it saw an opportunity to purchase Voysys earlier this year. According to Kashani, the company’s technology is better than any other currently on the market. Before becoming a Voysys customer, the Serve team had attempted to build the connectivity layer itself.

Voysys will continue to serve global clients

Voysys claimed that its proprietary bandwidth regulation, advanced video compression, and multi-link redundancy “enable a glass-to-glass latency as low as 50 milliseconds, setting a new benchmark for safe and reliable connectivity.” The Norrköping, Sweden-based company added that its visualization toolbox allows customers to customize their user experience with 3D, VR, bird’s eye, and other views.

Serve Robotics said that Voysys will operate as part of its Software & Data Services platform, focused on monetizing and generating recurring revenues from proprietary technologies.

“Joining Serve allows us to scale our impact while continuing to support our valued industrial partners,” stated Torkel Danielsson, Voysys co-founder and CEO. “We are excited to bring our technology to Serve’s delivery robots to deliver the unmatched latency and reliable connectivity essential for Level 4 autonomy at scale. By combining our strengths, we are building a powerful platform that will support the next generation of autonomous vehicles and robots across industries.”

Capabilities have potential beyond sidewalk robots

Kashani said he believes that the Voysys technology is valuable beyond just the sidewalk delivery use case. Thus, Serve Robotics plans to maintain and expand its existing contracts with global clients, including a major European commercial vehicle manufacturer, a middle-mile autonomous trucking company, and agricultural robotics company Maniro AI.

In addition, Serve will support the expansion of Voysys’ capabilities to better support clients across myriad industries, strengthening the global ecosystem for autonomous vehicles and robotics in parallel with its own rapidly scaling fleet.

“I’m really excited that we can actually offer this now to other companies in our space, in robotics, in AVs,” Kashani added. “It’s a moment where a lot of technologies are being deployed into real life, and you have to solve the problem of connectivity. Now we’ve been facing it a bit longer.”

“I would have been happy to use another technology if it was scaled in a different application first, and we got to kind of come in and enjoy the benefits of that,” he noted. “But unfortunately, or fortunately, we are actually the ones scaling before everybody else.”

Serve continues its growth path

When asked about the ongoing field deployments of Serve sidewalk robots, Kashani responded, “As we shared on our recent earnings call, we are on track. I think the last number we shared was 400 robots in the first half of the year.”

“And by the end of the year, we are still projecting 2,000 robots, which was what we had shared in the past,” he said. “So it’s scaling very, very rapidly right now.”

Redwood City, Calif.-based Serve Robotics last month acquired Vayu Robotics to add its AI foundation models and simulation-powered data engine to its technology stack.