⚡TL;DR

Zipline is a California-based, Rwanda-raised, drone delivery and logistics company that operates autonomous electric drones to transport supplies and deliveries.

💉 Infrastructure Gap = Lives Lost. Last-mile delivery is an annoying and expensive problem anywhere. But in rural Africa, clinics often can’t get blood or vaccines in time. Poor roads and long delays cost lives every day.

🌍 Africa First, Not Silicon Valley. Instead of launching in the U.S., Zipline began operations in Rwanda in 2016, where the need for medical supplies was urgent and the stakes were life or death.

🙌 Why We Say Hell Yeah. They chose to solve the most challenging problem first. Not only did this prioritize humanitarian impact; but also rapidly strengthened their product development cycle when people’s lives were on the line.

Focus on a problem worth solving

Zipline today is a growing drone startup that has partnered with Walmart, Chipotle, Sweetgreen and others to bring you last-mile delivery of goods in a faster and more direct way than sitting in traffic. Yet, we’re starting this newsletter with a TED talk from 7 years ago because the true hell yeah of Zipline’s story lays in its early decisions which helped forge the company’s later success.

Keller Cliffton Rinaudo initially founded a startup called Romotive in 2011 to build small iPhone-controlled toy robots, but by 2014 he realized this gadget business wasn’t solving a meaningful problem. Rinaudo – a software engineer and robotics enthusiast with no prior medical or African healthcare experience – began searching for a mission where robotics could have a life-saving impact. That same year, during a visit to the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, he encountered an alarming scenario: rural clinics were using SMS to request blood and medicines, yet poor roads prevented those urgent orders from being fulfilled. He made the decision to pivot the entire company to solve this problem.

Read our prior piece about Mobility for Africa to further highlight the magnitude of the mobility problem in rural Africa.

As Rinaudo has recounted later, this decision did not sit well with investors. Why get into a highly-regulated industry (airspace control + healthcare… yikes)? And why start in Africa?!

Image taken from Time Magazine’s article in 2017. Link.

But Keller’s team was convinced. Not only was the problem itself so motivating, the fact they could partner with the Government of Rwanda to try and roll out national-scale drone delivery would greatly expedite learning, approvals, and other product milestones.

Zipline’s first operational hub opened in Muhanga, Rwanda in 2016. By late 2017, they had delivered over 7,000 units of blood to 21 hospitals. As of 2024, they’ve completed over 1 million deliveries across Africa and beyond, flying more than 70 million autonomous miles and becoming the largest autonomous network on Earth. As a famous example, blood deliveries that normally would have taken 3 hours in the “Land of a Thousand Hills” now takes 15 mins. Saving lives.

Wings, Parachutes, and Precision

Their tech evolved, too. Over the course of different hardware platforms and software updates, Zipline’s new drones offer quiet, ultra-precise delivery to individual homes or hospitals. These next-gen models are designed for urban and suburban use, expanding their reach beyond rural clinics.

How it works:

Fixed-wing drones (“Zips”): Autonomous aircraft that fly up to 80 miles roundtrip at high speeds, even in rain or wind.
Catapult launch, parachute drop: Drones launch from Zipline hubs and drop medical packages via parachute with pinpoint accuracy. No landing needed.
Instant dispatch: A clinic sends a text. Zipline loads the product in minutes. The drone is airborne almost immediately.
Hub-and-spoke model: One distribution center can serve hundreds of remote sites, eliminating the need for ground infrastructure.

Zipline has achieved significant funding and growth milestones as one of the leading drone delivery startups. The company attracted major Silicon Valley investors (including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz) and in April 2023 Zipline secured $330 million in Series F funding at a valuation of about $4.2 billion

Alongside public sector deals in Africa, the company has launched private partnerships in the US with consumer companies (e.g., Walmart, Sweetgreen, Chipotle, etc) so you can get your burrito faster, as well as healthcare companies like Novant Health to deliver medical equipment and PPE to hospitals. In select areas of Texas, Arkansas, and Washington, you can download the Zipline app to get items delivered directly to you via drone with a push of a button.

⚡Why we said hell yeah!

Look, we always thought drone delivery was cool. We first heard of drone delivery in 2013 when CBS was teasing its 60 Minutes with Jeff Bezos that talked about Amazon drone delivery. “Neat,” Dan thought to himself, “soon I’ll be able to get my Mountain Dew faster,” while struggling to reach the remote control.

But same as we said in our piece on Mobility For Africa, our first-world US problems pale in comparison to life-and-death problems in other areas. And yet economics paints a different picture. Wealthy consumers can (and will) often pay more for everyday convenience than some public budgets for high-urgency logistics. Deep sigh.

So, the prevailing venture capital wisdom would obviously be to start in high-income areas in the USA, right? You’re already here. Engineers are here. Infrastructure is here. Chase the dollars, earn revenue, and prove the product efficacy prior to expanding to these other use-cases… as noble as they may be. This is the easier, straight forward path and one that 99% of US startups would take.

So our hell yeah is really around the conviction of these founders to focus on the hard thing first… and without background in aviation, healthcare, or any African business experience. Doing the hard thing is how you get teams to follow you into the fire, sleep better at night, and also generate a ton of positive press. Also, it makes the later pitch to Walmart a little easier. “Relax, we deliver temperature-sensitive blood to dying patients in 15 minutes. This has been proven over millions of miles already. Your customer, Dan, will be able to get his Cheetos on time.”

So hell yeah to doing the hard thing. Hell yeah to saving lives. And… sure… hell yeah to fast Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

Inspired Swag

We are considering a limited-edition run of sweatshirts inspired by the great mission here. If you are interested in purchasing, please reach out to us at [email protected] to learn more.