Uber plans to bring Zipline drones to Eats, targeting 1 million daily deliveries

A meal may soon arrive with a rotor’s whine instead of a delivery driver’s knock. Uber and Zipline say Zipline drones will make their first Uber Eats deliveries by the end of this year, starting in markets where Zipline already operates. The companies want to expand the service into dozens of U.S. cities.

The promised wait is short: Uber says the drones could fulfill orders within five to ten minutes. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told the Wall Street Journal that this market could become a major source of growth for Eats.

The larger target is far more demanding: one million deliveries per day by the end of 2029. Uber and Zipline did not disclose the amount of Uber’s investment. Zipline, based in San Francisco, recently closed an extended Series H funding round of $800 million, pushing its valuation to $7.6 billion.

Uber is not building this network alone. It has been adding drone-delivery partners as it looks to extend Uber Eats, after previously testing the idea through its Elevate division and later partnering with Israeli startup Flytrex. The same platform strategy has helped Uber stay involved in autonomous vehicles after selling its own programs, but its dispute with Waymo—whose contracts are expected to expire in 2028—shows that partnerships can also become points of tension.

So what changes in practice? If the plan works, customers in the companies’ existing markets could receive some Uber Eats orders in five to ten minutes, while Uber adds another delivery option to its platform. The first deliveries remain a planned launch, not a nationwide service, and the path from those initial markets to one million daily deliveries has yet to be demonstrated.