Sam Altman-backed Coco Robotics raises $80M

Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics, a startup building last-mile delivery robots, announced it raised $80 million on Wednesday.

The company raised this funding from angel investors Sam Altman and Max Altman, both returning investors, in addition to VC firms like Pelion Venture Partners and Offline Ventures, among others.

This $80 million total includes a mix of undisclosed funding events from 2021 to 2025, according to Nadia Jamshidi, a company spokesperson.

While Sam Altman personally provided capital to the company, OpenAI gets a benefit, too. Coco announced a partnership with OpenAI in March, which allows Coco to use OpenAI while the AI company gains the real-world data the robots collect to train its models.

Jamshidi confirmed that Altman was not a part of the discussion between Coco and OpenAI and made his last investment in Coco more than six months before the OpenAI deal was struck.

Coco’s zero-emissions robots can hold 90 liters’ worth of groceries or goods and have made more than 500,000 deliveries since they hit the streets in 2020, the company said. It says it works with national retailers, including Subway, Wingstop, and Jack in the Box.

The company was founded in 2020 by Brad Squicciarini and Zach Rash.

Update: This story was updated throughout to include clarifying information from Coco on the timeline of the multiple fundraises.