Rivr’s dog-like robots join Veho vans to solve ‘last-100-yards’ parcel delivery in Austin

Delivery bots are stepping up their game—literally. Rivr’s four-legged, stair-climbing robots are teaming up with Veho to tackle the trickiest part of delivery: the last 100 yards to your door. Think of it as a dog on roller skates, but way more useful.

Austin’s the test lab for this high-tech tag team. One bot, under tight supervision, will hustle packages from vans to doorsteps for a couple of weeks. Small start? Sure. But it’s all about cracking the code on autonomous delivery’s final frontier.

Rivr’s CEO calls it the next evolution from sidewalk bots. Why? Because while humans breeze through these tasks, robots? Not so much. This pilot’s not just about deliveries—it’s about gathering the data to make robots smarter, one parcel at a time.

For Veho, delivering for big names like Sephora and HelloFresh, this is a chance to see if bots can take the load off drivers, especially in packed urban spots. Imagine a driver and a bot working the same street—double the deliveries, half the sweat.

The bot’s got autonomy, but a human’s on standby to jump in if it hits a snag. Starting in Northwest Austin, the plan’s to expand to denser areas, with charging stations to keep the bots rolling all day.

Rivr’s eyeing big numbers: 100 bots by next year, thousands by 2027. With a $100M valuation and a Jeff Bezos-backed round, they’re not just playing fetch—they’re changing the game.