Singapore ride hailing company Grab has acquired Infermove, a Chinese AI robotics specialist in first and last kilometre logistics.

Founded in early 2021 by Aaron Lu in a Santa Clara garage in California, Infermove later established itself in Beijing and Suzhou, China, focusing on R&D and manufacturing. As a start-up specialising in autonomous driving for unstructured environments and mobile manipulation robots, its products include sidewalk delivery robots with upper-limb manipulation capabilities and personal mobility robots.

Leveraging driving data from non-motorised vehicles such as delivery riders’ electric scooters, Infermove is training mobile robots to adapt to complex real-world physical environments. Through imitation learning, reinforcement learning technologies and self-developed end-to-end algorithms, the company enables robots to exhibit human-like operational capabilities in intricate last-kilometre deliveries.

Its proprietary Rider Shadow system allows crowdsourced collection of robot training data using last-kilometre mobility devices such as electric wheelchairs and scooters, addressing the industry-wide problems of slow, costly data acquisition and over-reliance on simulated or demonstration data in embodied intelligence.

Despite its relatively short operational history, Infermove has achieved rapid progress in commercialisation. Currently, its Carri series robots have partnered with major delivery platforms in China, including Meituan, Ele.me of Alibaba, Sam’s Club, and Dada of JD.com. Simultaneously, the company has established pilot projects with local corporate clients in Singapore, Japan and Australia.

The company’s revenue surged from RMB100,000 in 2023 to RMB10m in 2025, achieving a 100-fold growth in three years. With over 1000 outstanding orders pending delivery, Infermove expects its revenue to exceed RMB200m in 2026.

The acquisition represents a step in Grab’s efforts to advance automation within its expanding delivery and mobility network in south-east Asia and beyond. Amid rising labour costs and sustained growth in on-demand delivery demand, robotics technology and AI have become key drivers for enhancing service reliability and maintaining profit margins.

The global last-kilometre delivery robotics market is experiencing rapid growth, with an expected market size exceeding $20bn by 2027. Faced with the dual pressures of cost reduction and service expansion, AI-driven automation technology has emerged as a critical competitive differentiator for delivery platforms, a key factor that led Grab to pursue Infermove.

As a mobility and delivery provider in south-east Asia, Grab (www.grab.com/sg/) went public through a SPAC merger in 2021 and is currently traded on the Nasdaq with a market capitalisation of approximately $20bn. Grab hopes Infermove (infermove.ai) will complement its delivery network and drive Infermove’s continued growth.