Instead of a human delivering a DoorDash food order, Central Texans could soon be getting their next meals from the sky. Zipline, the world’s largest autonomous drone delivery company, is reportedly planning to break into the Austin market.
The Austin American-Statesman reports that the company is expanding its service into Austin later this year, aiming to fly food, groceries and even prescriptions directly to Texan’s homes. This news comes as Zipline continues to spread its wings across the Lone Star State.
In late April, Zipline launched its early access drone delivery program, First Flight, in Houston. Over the past year, the company has been operating in more than 20 municipalities across the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex, making hundreds of thousands of autonomous deliveries to homes, courtyards, offices, universities, town squares, parks and more, according to a release.
Zipline markets itself as a safer and quicker alternative to traditional car delivery services. The company says its “all-electric, autonomous drones have safely flown more than 130 million commercial miles across four continents and delivered more than 20 million products,” with zero crashes or injuries.
Zipline uses food-delivery giants like DoorDash and Grubhub to take orders and fly them to customers who order from partner stores including Chipotle, Walmart, Buffalo Wild Wings, Little Caesars and more. Although the company has not set an official launch date in Austin yet, a Zipline spokesperson told the Statesman that the company is still working through zoning approvals with the city to set up its charging stations, where its drones will dock to charge between deliveries.
The drones with temperature-controlled pods inside can carry about 8 pounds on round trips of about 10 miles. Founded in 2014, Zipline was first created to deliver life-saving medical supplies to remote communities in Rwanda, Africa. Today, the company delivers to more than 5,000 hospitals and health centers in Africa and expanded in 2025 to provide home delivery services in the U.S. such as Pea Ridge, Arkansas and the DFW-area.