21. Zipline

Founders: Keller Rinaudo Cliffton (CEO), Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oksenhorn
Launched: 2014
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: $500 million
Valuation: $4.2 billion (PitchBook)
Key technologies: Artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, machine learning, robotics
Industry: Logistics
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 List: 5 (No. 25 in 2023)

In April, Zipline announced that it had completed its one millionth customer delivery via its autonomous drones, sending two bags of IV fluid from a Zipline distribution center in Ghana to a local health facility.

While the company, founded in 2014, has not strayed from its original focus of delivering critical medical supplies, Zipline's opportunities within quick commerce and food are accelerating its growth. Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton told CNBC in April that 70% of the company's total deliveries have happened in the past two years.

The company's clients now include more than 4,700 hospitals, as well as large brands like Toyota Tsusho and GNC. Already working with Sweetgreen, it has plans to add Panera Bread in Seattle and Jet's Pizza in Detroit, leaning into the continued consumer desire for the fastest-possible food delivery.

Zipline has had a relationship with Walmart dating back to 2020, and, alongside Alphabet's drone delivery provider Wing, is working with the retailer on its plan to offer drone delivery for up to 75% of the more than six million people that make up the Dallas-Fort Worth population. That would be the largest drone delivery footprint of any U.S. retailer, according to Walmart.

After many years of promise, the reality of widespread autonomous drone delivery is arriving. Wing, which introduced new aircraft earlier this year that can carry a package up to five pounds, has said it has completed more than 350,000 drone deliveries on the three continents where it operates. While Amazon shuttered its drone delivery operations in Lockeford, California, the company said it intends to keep expanding drone deliveries to more U.S. cities in 2025 and plans to open up in part of the Phoenix area later this year.

Rinaudo Cliffton told CNBC in April that his goal is for Zipline to do one million deliveries a day, something that will be facilitated as the company starts to deliver more and more food. Zipline currently operates in seven countries — Rwanda, Ghana, the U.S., Nigeria, Japan, Kenya and Côte D'Ivoire. 

"We need to start using vehicles that are light, fast, autonomous, and zero-emission," Rinaudo Cliffton said. "Delivering in this way is 10 times as fast, it's less expensive … and relative to the traditional delivery apps that most restaurants will be working with, we triple the service radius, which means you actually [get] 10 times the number of customers who are reachable via instant delivery."