What is Zipline?
Autonomous drone delivery for healthcare, retail, and instant logistics.
- Category
- Drone delivery logistics
- Headquarters
- South San Francisco, CA
- Founded
- 2014
- Employees
- 500-1,000
- Total funding
- ~$1.4B+
- Valuation
- $7.6B (2026)
What is Zipline?
Zipline designs, manufactures, and operates autonomous delivery drones for medical, retail, restaurant, and consumer logistics.
Zipline designs, manufactures, and operates autonomous delivery drones for medical, retail, restaurant, and consumer logistics. As of June 2026, it sits in Drone delivery logistics with headquarters in South San Francisco, CA.
By January 2026 Zipline had reported more than two million commercial deliveries and over 120 million autonomous miles, with operations in Africa, Japan, and the United States. Its public traction is strongest where customers need high-reliability systems, safety, and mission or operational outcomes rather than experiments.
For sellers, Zipline should be treated as a technical account with multiple buying centers. Product, engineering, security, operations, finance, and customer-program teams can all matter depending on the workflow.
What does Zipline offer?
Zipline offers products and services across Drone delivery logistics.
- Platform 1· Long-range logistics
- Platform 2· Home delivery
- Delivery droid· Last-meter delivery
- Distribution centers· Operations
- Zipline app· Consumer
- Partner APIs· Integration
How does Zipline make money?
Zipline makes money through government and health-system logistics contracts, retail delivery partnerships, and consumer delivery operations. It does not publish one universal per-delivery price card.
Zipline makes money through government and health-system logistics contracts, retail delivery partnerships, and consumer delivery operations. It does not publish one universal per-delivery price card.
Growth comes from route density, regulatory approvals, partner demand, and U.S. expansion in markets such as Houston and Phoenix after its 2026 financing.
The practical revenue drivers are deployment scale, customer proof, reliability, and attach of software, support, integration, or sustainment. Public pricing is limited or quote-based, so deal sizing should be anchored in programs, fleet size, usage, or enterprise scope rather than a published tier page.
Who leads Zipline?
Zipline's public leadership includes Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Keenan Wyrobek, Liam O'Connor, Deepak Ahuja.
- Keller Rinaudo ClifftonCo-founder and CEOCo-founder since 2014Public CEO and originator of Zipline logistics model.
- Keenan WyrobekCo-founder and technical leaderCo-founder since 2014Robotics and aircraft systems co-founder.
- Liam O'ConnorOperations executiveSenior executiveAssociated with scaling global operations.
- Deepak AhujaFinance leader/board-level operatorAdvisor/executive signalFormer Tesla finance leader connected to capital-intensive scaling.
How do you contact Zipline's leadership?
Zipline publishes corporate or team contact routes, but individual executive inboxes are generally not published. The personal emails below are format-following addresses based on public email-pattern signals; treat them as routing hypotheses, not verified personal inboxes.
first.last@flyzipline.comHow much funding has Zipline raised?
Zipline has raised ~$1.4B+; latest public valuation/status is $7.6B (2026).
Zipline's disclosed financing history is: 2014-2016: Seed and early rounds (Capital to build the first medical delivery network.) 2019: Growth rounds (Expansion in Rwanda and Ghana.) 2021: Large growth financing (Funding for global expansion and U.S. regulatory work.) 2023: Platform 2 financing period (Capital supports home-delivery platform and partner launches.) Jan 2026: Growth round - $7.6B valuation (More than $600M raised for U.S. city expansion.)
The latest round/status is $600M+ (2026). Notable backers include Sequoia Capital, and the valuation/status to use as of June 2026 is $7.6B (2026).
Funding should be read together with customer traction. For hardware, robotics, autonomy, or defense companies, contract conversion, production scale, safety validation, and deployment economics matter as much as nominal capital raised.
How did Zipline get here?
Zipline's timeline runs from founding in 2014 to its latest financing and deployment milestones.
- 2014FoundedTeam pivots from Romotive into drone logistics.
- 2016Rwanda launchMedical deliveries begin.
- 2019Ghana launchNational-scale medical logistics expands.
- 2023Platform 2 introducedHome-delivery drone and droid system unveiled.
- 20241M deliveriesZipline reaches one million commercial deliveries.
- 20262M deliveries and $600M+ roundCompany reports 2M deliveries and raises at $7.6B valuation.
Who are Zipline's competitors?
Zipline competes with companies that solve adjacent customer problems in Drone delivery logistics.
- WingAlphabet drone delivery operator with U.S. and international deployments.
- Amazon Prime AirAmazon internal drone delivery program.
- MannaIrish drone delivery operator focused on suburbs and food/retail.
- FlytrexDrone delivery network for restaurants and retailers.
- MatternetMedical drone logistics operator.
Zipline — frequently asked questions
