A rolling, stair-climbing Amazon robot could deliver your future parcels
Rivr’s four-legged delivery bots could help Amazon tackle the hardest part of getting parcels to your door
The next time you order one of the best headphones from Amazon, there’s a non-zero chance that it’ll be delivered to your door by a stair-climbing robot.
That prediction comes courtesy of the news (via Engadget) that Amazon has just snapped up Rivr – a Zurich-based autonomous robotics startup building delivery robots. No price has been disclosed, but you can bet a fair amount of cash exchanged hands, given Rivr’s $110 million valuation back in 2024.
As for the robots themselves, they use a mix of wheels and legs, letting them roll along normally while the legs kick into action to climb stairs when needed.
Rivr has already been testing the idea in the real world, including a pilot in Austin with delivery firm Veho, and recently showed off a second-generation version of the robot.
Investing in robots is nothing new for Jeff Bezos’ retail behemoth. The company has been steadily pushing automation across its business for years, and announced that it deployed its millionth warehouse robot last summer. But a robot delivery service that can overcome a Dalek’s original weakness will take things to a whole new level.
In a LinkedIn post, Rivr CEO and cofounder Marko Bjelonic stated that “This step will accelerate our vision of building General Physical AI through doorstep delivery, bringing robotics and AI closer to real-world deployment at scale.”
Corpspeak aside, it’s hard to tell exactly when – or indeed, if – Amazon robot deliveries will kick off. But consider this an early heads up, just in case.
Esat Dedezade
Contributor 
