Can Zipline Make Drone Delivery ‘Mainstream’ in the US as it Fills Out its Exec Team?

In a report delivered for CNBC, reporter Lora Kolodny detailed Zipline’s goals of taking drone delivery to consumers beyond test markets into the American mainstream.

“South San Francisco startup Zipline is adding former Tesla and Waymo execs to its C-suite, and bringing on a former Uber executive to lead its commercial expansion, as the company scales its drone delivery service into new U.S. and international markets,” Kolodny began.

“Since Zipline started up about twelve years ago, its fully electric, autonomous drones have been used to make more than 2.5 million commercial deliveries. The drones can carry items weighing up to 8 pounds. They have been used to deliver everything from life-saving vaccines, blood and anti-venom doses, to burritos and personal pizzas. Customers generally order via Zipline’s app,” she added, noting that businesses from Chipotle and Little Caesars to Walmart all partner with Zipline for delivery.

Other interesting data points and facts pulled from the CNBC report:

• Delivery quantities are quickly accelerating: Zipline delivers a package once every 20 seconds, up from one per minute in early 2025, according to CEO and co-founder Keller Rinaudo Cliffton.
• Mass production is on the menu: The company has the ability to produce 24,000 drones annually out of its South San Francisco manufacturing facility.
• U.S. business is expected to grow exponentially in the near term, with global expansion following: Cliffton said “We are expecting just the U.S. business to grow by another 15X this year,” and that “many tens of metros across the U.S. and some new, large international markets” will be opening to Zipline next year.
• Growth in the United States has already scaled significantly: With nearly three-quarters (70%) of the company’s daily delivery volume taking place stateside, and with one million of Zipline’s total deliveries so far having taken place over the past 12 months, a trend is in evidence.

Among the new executive team members are CFO Sendil Palani (former VP of finance for Tesla); chief legal officer Kevin Vosen (formerly of Ohalo, an agricultural biotech firm); and Allen Penn as head of commercialization and markets (previously serving as VP with Uber Eats). Existing competitors for Zipline include startups Flytrex and Matternet — and most notably, Wing, Alphabet’s offering in the drone delivery space.

Might Drone Delivery Become a Customer Service Fixture in the Near Future?

Kolodny cited PwC researchers as suggesting that Zipline’s projections of drone delivery becoming an everyday occurrence in the U.S. may not be too farfetched, with growth projected at 65% between 2024 through 2034 — and deliveries moving from 13 million in 2026 to a whopping 800 million by 2034.

“It’s at a crazy inflection point. This thing that we were working on for 12 years that everyone thought was totally weird and was never going to work is now becoming totally normal,” Cliffton said.

“Everybody is realizing it doesn’t make sense to have a 3,000-pound gas-powered, combustion engine vehicle and a person deliver something to your house that weighs five pounds,” he added.