FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Logistics Startup Delivers.ai Launches European-Scale Autonomous Last-Mile Delivery Pilot in Varna, Bulgaria
Fleet of 60 sidewalk robots will serve 25,000 residents and 150 retail partners, cutting per-stop cost 38 % and tail-pipe emissions 100 % versus vans.
Varna, Bulgaria – 22 November 2025
Delivers.ai, a Sofia-based logistics-robotics company, today announced the commercial kick-off of Europe’s largest sidewalk autonomous-delivery pilot. Beginning 1 December, sixty AI-driven, zero-emission robots will operate seven days a week across the Black-Sea city of Varna, fulfilling grocery, pharmacy and e-commerce orders for more than 150 local merchants and the municipal e-grocery service. The program is backed by a €4.2 million grant from the Bulgarian Ministry of Innovation and is expected to log 1.4 million autonomous kilometres within twelve months.
“We are not testing a prototype—we are integrating autonomy into the city’s everyday supply chain,” said Hristo Hristov, co-founder and chief executive of Delivers.ai. “Varna gives us the density, the regulatory support and the mixed-traffic environment we need to prove that small, slow, electric robots can erase the last 500 m of friction that makes urban delivery expensive and polluting.”
Recent industry analysis shows last-mile accounts for 53 % of total parcel-delivery cost and 25 % of urban traffic emissions. Delivers.ai’s pilot targets both pain points. Each robot replaces roughly 1.2 diesel vans by carrying 20 kg of cargo at 6 km/h for 20 km on a single charge, while drawing only 0.7 kWh—about the energy of boiling a kettle. Independent modelling by the European Logistics Innovation Council estimates the pilot will remove 260 t of CO₂ and 1,900 kg of NOx annually, the equivalent of planting 11,800 urban trees.
“Autonomy is scaling fastest where regulators treat robots as new-class vehicles, not science projects,” said Dr. Lena Kahl, lead robotics analyst at Logistics Futures Group. “Bulgaria’s February 2025 amendment to the Roads Act created a clear 30-character robot licence plate and 6 km/h speed ceiling—exactly the clarity U.S. cities still lack.”
Retail partners gain API-level integration that slots robot dispatch directly into existing e-commerce check-outs. Customers choose a 30-minute delivery window; robots depart from micro-fulfilment cubes within 2 km of every address; and computer-vision navigation keeps average drop-off time under 42 seconds. Unit-economics projections supplied to the Ministry of Transport indicate a 38 % reduction in cost per stop versus human van drivers once fleet utilisation tops 65 %—a threshold Delivers.ai expects to reach in Q2 2026.
Safety data from 18 months of prior European pilots show zero pedestrian injuries across 180,000 km. Each robot carries redundant braking, 360° LiDAR, and a remote-operator takeover time of 250 ms. The Varna traffic police have certified the design under the new Personal Mobility Device category, allowing sidewalk, bike-lane and zebra-crossing operation. Insurance is underwritten by Lloyd’s of London at a premium 22 % below equivalent e-bike fleets, reflecting the low-speed profile.
The pilot will feed real-time telemetry to Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure Agency to inform national standards and to the EU’s “Smart Cities Marketplace,” a Commission programme collecting evidence for the forthcoming Urban Mobility Framework Regulation. If metrics meet projections, Delivers.ai and the city will expand to 200 robots and add night-time refrigerated service for restaurants by Q4 2026.
About Delivers.ai
Founded in 2021, Delivers.ai designs and manufactures sidewalk autonomous delivery robots in Sofia, Bulgaria. The company operates pilots in Germany, Italy and Japan and has completed more than 420,000 commercial deliveries to date. Its mission is to decarbonise last-mile logistics without waiting for full-scale urban autonomy.
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