While most delivery automation ends at the curb, Veho and the Zurich-based robotics startup Rivr are focused on tackling the final 100 yards from the van to the doorstep, which they believe holds the real challenge and opportunity.

As part of a pilot program launching in Austin on Tuesday, Rivr’s innovative four-wheeled, stair-climbing delivery robot, described by CEO Marko Bjelonic as resembling “a dog on roller skates,” will transport packages from Veho’s vans directly to customers’ front doors.

Although the pilot is starting on a small scale, with one closely supervised robot making daily five- to six-hour runs over a couple of weeks in Austin, both companies view it as a crucial step towards resolving a unique aspect of the autonomous delivery journey.

According to Bjelonic, robotics has a significant impact in last-mile delivery by solving complex problems that are straightforward for humans but challenging for robots, and Rivr sees its technology as a differentiator and the next evolutionary step from sidewalk robots.

The partnership between Rivr and Veho provides an opportunity for Rivr to test its technology, accumulate necessary data, and build a general physical AI framework.

Bjelonic explained to TechCrunch that the robotics space faces a data barrier, unlike chatbots and autonomous cars, which have extensive training data, and that finding a meaningful use case to collect data is essential to making robots more intelligent.

For Veho, which delivers to 50 U.S. markets for various brands, including Sephora, Saks, and HelloFresh, this partnership allows the company to explore what automation looks like from the van to the customer’s door, potentially enabling more simultaneous deliveries, especially in dense urban areas.

During the Austin trial, a Rivr employee will accompany the robot to ensure safety and delivery quality, and although the bots can operate autonomously, remote operators can intervene if needed.

The pilot will begin in Northwest Austin’s residential area before expanding to denser areas, and Veho’s co-founder and CTO, Fred Cook, envisions potentially pairing the vehicles with charging stations to keep the bots operating for a full day.

Rivr aims to use the learnings from its partnership with Veho to scale to 100 bots by next year and thousands by 2027, and the startup has already raised over $25 million, including a Jeff Bezos-led round that valued the company at $100 million.