Zipline has raised $1.5 billion at a $21.5 billion valuation and agreed a new multi-year deal with Walmart to add 300 drone delivery sites across the US, TechCrunch reports. The two firms have worked together since 2021 and run 21 active sites today.
Paradigm, WCM Investment Management and Layer Global led the round. Valor, Fidelity, Uber, Tiger Global, J.P. Morgan, ARK Invest and Salesforce Ventures also took part. The money is for US manufacturing and hiring, to build a nationwide drone delivery network.
The company, founded in 2014, started by delivering blood in Rwanda and later added Ghana and Nigeria. Its US work began in 2020 with medical supplies in North Carolina, and it won FAA Part 135 air carrier certification in 2022.
Uber, which also invested, struck a partnership with Zipline earlier this year. The company announced the round and the revenue figures on Thursday, and TechCrunch cites no outside confirmation of either.
Its Platform 2 drone carries up to eight pounds within a 10-mile radius, while Platform 1 flies long-range deliveries of up to 120 miles round trip. Zipline operates in five African countries, several US cities and Japan, across food, retail, agricultural and health deliveries.
The most striking number is Zipline’s own. It says its share of delivery revenue grew from 10.8 percent to 34.9 percent between March and October 2026.
Going from 21 sites to about 321 would be a fifteenfold jump. Not disclosed are the terms of the Walmart agreement, the timeline for the 300 sites, the revenue behind those percentages and the previous valuation.
