Zipline is an American start-up based in Half Moon Bay, California, a small coastal town off the Pacific Ocean which delivers medical product via drones. The company designs, manufactures, and operates delivery drones. The company operates distribution centers in Rwanda, Ghana, and many other cities across globe.
As of February 2021, the company has shown tremendous potential in the field of deliveries and the numbers are remarkable.
- 11,900,844 – miles flown
- 171,535 – commercial deliveries
- 1,006,785 – products delivered
- 25 Million – serviceable customers
Supply chain models
The company operates on 2 models for supply chain integration:
- Delivery + fulfillment service: Use Zipline as an end-to-end warehousing, fulfillment, and delivery service. Instant delivery capabilities gives you the power to transform your supply chain, increasing access and reducing cost.
- Integrated delivery service: Zipline co-locates its drone technology with your warehouse or store. You do fulfillment; Zipline does delivery. Turn your legacy real estate assets into a competitive advantage by equipping them with 30-minute delivery.
History
The company was founded in 2011 as Romotive by Keller Rinaudo. Romotive produced an iPhone-controlled robotic toy called Romo. In 2014, Romotive shut down, and the company refocused on delivering medical supplies using drones. Co-founders Keenan Wyrobek and William Hetzler joined at this time.
The company, in 2014, was vertically integrated – meaning it started designing and manufacturing the unmanned drones, the logistics software, and the accompanying launch and landing system.
The Zipline story began in 2016 in Rwanda and Ghana and has taken us around the world. Now, the company has built the world’s fastest and most reliable delivery drone, the world’s largest autonomous logistics network, and a truly amazing team. The drones are designed and tested in California and are assembled in the distribution centers in South San Francisco.
The company has moved from just being a drone company to an instant logistics provider as much of its successes over the past five years have been related to building out its logistics network.
Delivering life: Fast & efficient
Zipline was founded on a mission to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies and now the company has been delivering not just blood but also platelets, frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate. The company has started delivering COVID-19 vaccines and emergency medicines to the routine resupply of thousands of health facilities and homes.
As of May 2019, more than 65% of blood deliveries in Rwanda outside of Kigali use Zipline drones. In Ghana, the company began using drones in April 2019 to deliver vaccines, blood, and medicines. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted a Part 107 waiver to Novant Health in partnership with Zipline for the delivery of medical supplies and personal protective equipment to medical facilities in North Carolina.
Recently the company has raised $250 million in new funding. This latest round has vaulted the company’s valuation to $2.75 billion and will fuel further expansion of its logistics networks in Africa and the United States.
Zipline is among ten drone delivery companies selected by the FAA to participate in a type certification program for delivery drones.
You might like to read about FedEx Logistics
Indian context
In September 2019, Maharashtra announced that Zipline would deliver emergency medicine throughout the country. The proposal deployment includes building 10 distribution centers to cover 120 million citizens
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Way ahead
The company has since partnered with logistics company UPS in that East African country, the Toyota Group in Japan, and it’s started working with Nigeria’s Kaduna and Cross River States. The company has partnered with Novant Health in US to deliver medical equipment and personal protective gear in North Carolina and, notably, with retail giant Walmart delivering health and wellness products.
Zipline sees an additional opportunity in delivering healthcare items, such as pharmaceutical prescriptions, directly to people’s homes. Hospitals really see instant logistics as the other half of telepresence. “If you can have someone quickly pull out their phone and talk to a doctor, then the other half of the equation is, can we get you what you need?” Here comes Zipline to the aid.
In the long run, Zipline may start to focus on other industries, but for now it’s laser focused on healthcare. It also aims to serve the majority of single-family detached homes across the United States over the coming three years.
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