{"id":36670,"date":"2026-03-22T15:17:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/36670\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T15:17:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:17:25","slug":"amazon-acquires-robotics-start-up-rivr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/36670\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon acquires robotics start-up RIVR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    \t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"RIVR Robots\" title=\"RIVR Robots\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/RivrRobots.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Following an investment two years ago, Amazon has acquired ETH Zurich spin-off RIVR Technologies AG. The company has developed and trained their quadrupedal robots to walk, drive, stand upright on two legs and manipulate packages with wheeled end effectors. The robots are in use in several countries.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rivr.ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Rivr<\/a> is pioneering General Physical AI by deploying robots in last-mile delivery. Currently, delivery drivers can spend most of their time navigating short distances from their vans to customers&#8217; front doors, often managing multiple nearby drop-offs. RIVR\u2019s autonomous robotic companion is designed to streamline this process by handling these final steps, reducing the need for repetitive short-distance walking, alleviating driver fatigue while increasing parcel throughput and efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund invested in RIVR as part of a USD 22 million funding round. Amazon has now acquired the ETH spin-off. The tech news site <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theinformation.com\/articles\/amazon-acquires-robotics-startup-boosting-efforts-streamline-deliveries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Information<\/a> was the first to report on the acquisition. The transaction\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/19\/amazon-acquires-startup-rivr-to-test-robots-for-doorstep-delivery.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">was confirmed to CNBC<\/a>.\u00a0An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that the acquisition \u201creflects our commitment to a continued investment in research\u201d and efforts to improve safety for its delivery employees.<\/p>\n<p>In a LinkedIn post RIVR CEO Marko Bjelonic commented: &#8220;I\u2019m excited to share that <a class=\"QPSBGRTTCToxrpUoVsOUnfwcbljCvWXALY \" tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/rivr-technologies\/\" target=\"_self\" data-test-app-aware-link=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">RIVR, an Amazon company<\/a> is now part of <a class=\"QPSBGRTTCToxrpUoVsOUnfwcbljCvWXALY \" tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/amazon\/\" target=\"_self\" data-test-app-aware-link=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Amazon<\/a>, marking the start of an exciting new chapter for our team.\u00a0This step will accelerate our vision of building General Physical AI through doorstep delivery, bringing robotics and AI closer to real-world deployment at scale.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The deal is likely to further boost interest in Switzerland as a hub for robotics. The Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund has also already identified another promising start-up in Switzerland. It has invested in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.algorized.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Algorized<\/a>. The technology of the Lausanne-based start-up allows robots to &#8220;see&#8221; through occlusion, dust, and darkness &#8211; navigating complex, shared human environments while eliminating unnecessary stops.<\/p>\n<p>(Stefan Kyora)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following an investment two years ago, Amazon has acquired ETH Zurich spin-off RIVR Technologies AG. The company has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[21570,3264,6006,21576,21578,21577,21579,21575,14278,10107,3555,4027,1101,21574,250,21572,21569,7132,19820,21573,21571,2444,17,51],"class_list":["post-36670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zurich","tag-acquired","tag-acquisition","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-acquired","tag-amazon-acquired-eth","tag-amazon-industrial","tag-amazon-industrial-innovation","tag-cnbc","tag-delivery","tag-eth","tag-fund","tag-industrial","tag-innovation","tag-invested","tag-investment","tag-navigating","tag-rivr","tag-robotics","tag-robots","tag-short","tag-spin","tag-start","tag-switzerland","tag-zurich"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116273495627951977","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}