Zipline

Drone Delivery · Logistics · Retail Tech

Funding

Zipline raises $1.5B at $21.5B valuation as Walmart adds 300 drone sites

The startup's valuation has nearly tripled in under a year as retailers bet drones can finally outrun trucks at scale.

• Zipline raised $1.5 billion in a round led by Paradigm, WCM Investment Management, and Layer Global, valuing the drone delivery company at $21.5 billion post-money.
• Founded in 2014, Zipline builds autonomous delivery drones, launch-and-landing systems, and logistics software; it started by flying blood to hospitals in Rwanda before expanding to US retail and medical deliveries.
• Walmart signed a new multi-year deal to add 300 drone delivery sites across the US, a major jump from the 21 active sites the two companies run today.
• Zipline's valuation has nearly tripled in about ten months, up from $7.6 billion when it raised $600 million in January 2026.
• Uber, which took a strategic stake in Zipline in August, is targeting one million joint drone deliveries a day by 2029; Zipline says its median October order arrived in 19 minutes, versus 30-plus minutes for ground delivery.
• Zipline received FAA Part 135 air carrier certification in 2022, clearing it for long-range commercial drone flights, and says it has since flown 150 million commercial autonomous miles without a safety incident.
• The raise shows big retailers treating drone delivery as a real logistics bet rather than a pilot program, with Amazon separately racing to scale its own service to roughly 500 US locations by year-end.