California, USA – having cut its teeth delivering medical supplies and samples for partners all over the world, drone logistics company Matternet is now trying its hand on package deliveries into homes.
The California-based company has announced that its foray into home deliveries will be kick-started in with the launch of the first-ever drone delivery service in Silicon Valley, where Matternet will carry out delivery of food and commercial items to consumers’ homes.
The announcement follows hot on the heels of a successful period of trials that have been running since August 30, and now will be expanded into the cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale in Santa Clara County.
“After years of advancing drone delivery in healthcare, we’re excited to launch our first home delivery operation in the heart of Silicon Valley,” said Andreas Raptopoulos, founder and CEO of Matternet.
“We’re entering the next phase of scale in drone delivery — building a new layer of ultra-efficient logistics infrastructure that will become an essential utility for every household.”
The pilot program will leverage a variant of the Matternet M2 Drone Delivery platform, which is the only Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Type Certified platform for drone delivery in the United States.
Flying in controlled airspace over densely populated areas, the M2 drones are equipped with a Tether Drop system, allowing them to lower packages directly to customers' doorsteps, providing a completely new delivery experience.
“The future is finally here — this is the right delivery experience for the digital age,” Raptopoulos said.
“It is so fast, it feels like magic. And every delivery means one less trip by car — less congestion in our cities, and fewer emissions in the air we breathe.”
The process is fully automated: drones are loaded at a central hub, fly directly to the customer’s home, and descend safely above a customer drop zone to release the package via the tether. Drones then return to the hub, swap their battery and pick up a new package in under 60 seconds, and take off for their next delivery.
In a statement, Matternet said the program will lay the groundwork for a broader roll-out as the company prepares to expand operations of its home delivery platform in collaboration with other major logistics partners.
Matternet says feedback from early adopting local residents has been positive, highlighting the speed, convenience, and cutting-edge nature of drone delivery.
As a developer of the M2 delivery drone and the Matternet Software Platform,Matternet has achieved a number of industry feats, which include working with package delivery company UPS and cargo airline company Ameriflight, who have received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate the Matternet M2 under Part 135.
Matternet has achieved many industry firsts, including being the first company to be authorised for commercial Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone delivery operations over cities in Switzerland; the first to launch routine revenue-generating operations in the US, and the first to achieve standard Type Certification and Production Certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
The company is credited with launching the world’s first humanitarian drone delivery missions in 2014, the first B2B healthcare operations in Europe in 2017 and in the US in 2019.