Why Service Robotics Acquires Hospital Assistive Robotics Company

Service Robotics, the Nvidia and Uber-backed curbside delivery robot company, is expanding into a new category with its latest acquisition: healthcare.

Los Angeles-based Servi Robotics announced Tuesday that it has acquired Diligent Robotics, a startup that builds robots called Moxy that are designed to help in hospitals by delivering lab samples, supplies and other tasks. The deal values ​​Diligent’s common stock at $29 million.

Founded in 2017 by Andrea Tomaz and Vivian Zhu, Diligent Robotics has raised more than $75 million in venture capital — most recently raising a $25 million funding round in 2023.

This acquisition marks Servi’s first foray beyond its roots in food delivery. Curbside delivery robotics company Postmites was incubated within food delivery company Postmites in 2017. The project continued after Uber bought Postates, before it was spun off in 2021. Service went public in April 2024 via a reverse merger.

Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Surf, doesn’t see the acquisition as a significant deviation from the company’s initial goal.

Although the company hasn’t focused specifically on healthcare yet, how the Diligent Moxi robot works fits directly into the company’s thesis of last-mile delivery and robots that can navigate alongside humans, Kashani told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

“This is kind of a classic example of a prepared mind meeting opportunity,” Kashani said. “Robots that move between people is the broader opportunity for us. Once you solve the problem, which is how to get robots to move seamlessly between people as autonomous machines, you can take it to a lot of other environments. We knew we wanted to do this one day.”

Healthcare was not a specific target for expansion either, but companies were introduced at the right time, Kashani said. Diligent was looking to expand, while Service was opportunistically looking for new areas.

“We love the team; it has a very similar DNA to us, which is that instead of building in a lab, they’re building in real life,” Kashani said. “It seems like it really aligns with our mission.”

Diligent will continue to operate relatively independently within Surf, Kashani said. He added that Diligent will leverage Submit’s software and tools to help them operate at scale, and the companies will share technology and collaborate.

Kashani added that this is not a pivot for the company, nor does it mean that Surf is looking to acquire more startups. Kashani, who stressed that Servi is still largely focused on curbside delivery robots, said it will “keep our eyes open” for interesting companies as potential partners, not necessarily acquisition targets.

He said Surf was able to grow its fleet of robots in 2025 from 100 to more than 2,000. The company also signed a partnership with DoorDash to facilitate some deliveries in Los Angeles in October.

“Our work on the sidewalk is what fuels everything,” Kashani said. “It creates the technology. It’s one of the largest self-driving fleets in the world right now, and developing it helps us create everything we need in other applications.”