Zipline (company)

Zipline is a company providing automated logistics. It designs, manufactures, and operates drones to deliver medical products. It aims to give remote areas access to medical products.

Zipline’s business is funded from three streams: both government and business customers pay for the use of Zipline’s instant delivery service; key philanthropic partners help to support the establishment of new distribution centers in low and middle-income markets, and venture capital investment supports scaling the company’s team and technology.

Zipline has raised a new round of financing in two phases over the last year to help support efforts to scale its team and technology across the globe. In the Spring of 2018, Zipline raised $70 million from Katalyst Ventures, Baillie Gifford, GV, Temasek, Bright Success Capital, Goldman Sachs, Oakhouse Partners, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, and the Design to Improve Life Fund.

The company also raised $120 million in the Spring of 2019, which included additional investments by Baillie Gifford and a new investor, The Rise Fund, a global Impact fund managed by TPG. Baillie Gifford and The Rise Fund were joined by returning investors Temasek, GV, and Katalyst Ventures. The new funding places Zipline’s valuation at over $1.2 billion.

The new investors join some of the most respected investors in the world including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, and Stanford University, who have helped to support the Zipline mission to bring its life-saving service to every person on the planet. In total, Zipline has raised $225 million from investors since its founding.

Keenan Wyrobek, Keller Rinaudo, and Will Hetzler founded Zipline in 2014. The company designs and tests its technology in Half Moon Bay, California. It has distribution centers in South San Francisco. Zipline performs flight testing in Davis, California, and operates distribution centers around the world with teams of local operators.