Zipline raises $1.5 billion as Walmart and Uber commit to a nationwide drone network

Zipline, a South San Francisco drone delivery company that says it first flew about 10 years ago, raised $1.5 billion at a $21.5 billion post-money valuation, the company said on November 5. Paradigm, WCM Investment Management and Layer Global led the round.

How it started

Zipline's own account of its start is short. The company says it spent 10 years building a logistics network that delivers medical supplies, and that in Côte d'Ivoire it is now building a nationwide network expected to serve more than 2,200 health facilities and 12 million people. Its co-founder and chief executive is Keller Cliffton, according to the company's August announcement of a partnership with Uber.

The company's sources do not say when or where it was founded or what the founders did before, so this article does not state them.

How it grew

Zipline has moved from medical deliveries to food and retail in the US. In a July 14 announcement it said it had completed more than 2.5 million commercial deliveries, including one million in the last year, and that the number of businesses offering delivery through its app grew 13 times in the first half of 2026.

On August 17 the company said Uber would offer Zipline drone delivery across the US and make a strategic investment, with a goal of one million deliveries a day. The November release says Uber is targeting that figure by 2029. It also says Walmart and Zipline are launching 300 additional sites under a new multi-year agreement, and that Zipline made more than one million deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this year.

The figures that describe customers come from Zipline itself. It said the median October order arrived 19 minutes after checkout, against 30 or more minutes for traditional delivery. For a group of its longest-tenured restaurants, Zipline's share of delivery revenue grew from 10.8% to 34.9% between March and October, a rise of 24.1 percentage points (computed). The company said those restaurants saw a 26% increase in delivery gross merchandise value, with 80% of the increase coming from Zipline orders.

What the founder says

"Teleportation isn't science fiction anymore. It's becoming part of everyday life," Cliffton said in the August announcement. The company's investors made the case for the round in the November release. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang said Zipline "is now one of the largest autonomous robotics companies in the world."

What the money is for

The company said it will use the capital to expand its US manufacturing facilities and ramp hiring as it builds a nationwide drone delivery network. It said it has flown 150 million commercial autonomous miles without a safety incident, a figure that has not been independently checked.

A round that shows demand, not yet the margin

We read this round as proof that large partners will commit, not as proof that the economics work. The release gives delivery times, a restaurant cohort and site counts, but no revenue, no cost per delivery and no figure for how many of Walmart's 300 sites will fly orders at what volume.

The opportunity is a network that adds partners faster than it adds cost; the threat is dependence on a few very large ones, Walmart and Uber, and a capital need that comes with building aircraft and sites. We expect the next milestone to be disclosed volume per site if Zipline reports it. We would change this view if the company published unit economics. The valuation is a price paid in a private round, not a forecast.

The view in this final section is FinanceInTime's editorial opinion, for information only. It is not investment, tax, legal or other advice, and it does not take your circumstances into account. Forecasts are uncertain and past results do not guarantee future ones.