Uber and Zipline partner on drone delivery for Uber Eats

Uber and Zipline partner on drone delivery for Uber Eats Uber and Zipline partner on drone delivery for Uber Eats · Quartz · Thomas Trutschel / Getty Images Cris Tolomia Mon, August 17, 2026 at 6:50 PM GMT+2 2 min read UBER ZIPL. PVT Uber and Zipline announced a partnership Monday that will extend autonomous drone delivery through Uber Eats to American customers nationwide, with Uber committing a strategic investment in the drone startup as part of the deal. The first deployments will begin in Dallas and Houston by the end of the year, according to the Wall Street Journal .

The companies plan to expand to dozens of additional U. S. cities and aim to reach one million drone deliveries per day by the end of 2029.

Uber said Zipline's drones could cut delivery times to between five and 10 minutes, a sharp reduction from the roughly 30-minute window customers currently experience. "Truly quick commerce is proving to be an even bigger market than the original food market was," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told the Wall Street Journal. "We think this can be an enormous tailwind for the next leg of growth for Eats.

" Zipline co-founder Keller Cliffton said in a statement that the collaboration moves the company closer to "a world where getting what you need is as fast and effortless as sending a text, no matter where you are. " Financial details of Uber's stake in Zipline were not made public, the companies said. Zipline operates on four continents and makes a delivery every 20 seconds, the company said.

Its existing U. S. commercial partners include Walmart, Panera, Chipotle, and Wendy's, according to Yahoo Finance .

Zipline was most recently valued at $7. 85 billion. The deal is Uber's largest commitment to drone delivery yet.

Uber has been building what it describes as a hybrid delivery network combining human couriers, sidewalk robots, and drones. Uber struck a comparable deal with Israeli drone firm Flytrex, which likewise involved Uber taking an equity stake in the company. Uber's second-quarter results earlier this month showed the company continuing to expand its delivery ambitions, including a planned acquisition of Germany's Delivery Hero and a commitment of more than $10 billion toward autonomous vehicle commercialization.

Khosrowshahi described Uber as building "the world's largest platform for autonomous vehicles. " The company said it has partnerships with more than 30 autonomous vehicle companies spanning its various business lines. Uber's key near-term challenge will be building a routing system to determine which orders are fulfilled by drones versus human couriers, Khosrowshahi said.

"Early on, there's going to be a complement between the two," he said.