DoorDash for years has rushed online orders from burritos to cold medicine to customers' homes via bike couriers and drivers. Now the delivery provider is adding a new mode of transport: air.
DoorDash on Wednesday said it has secured a key certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to make commercial deliveries using drones. The company is developing its own drones, along with the ground infrastructure and digital systems needed to coordinate order pickup and delivery.
The move takes the San Francisco-based company, which delivers orders from restaurants and stores, directly into the emerging market for aerial deliveries. Retailers like Amazon.com and Walmart have rolled out the option to some customers over the past several years in a bid to speed up the delivery of small items, such as candy or baby formula, by flying over vehicle traffic.
DoorDash has offered drone delivery in some areas of the U.S. for the past four years through partnerships with drone operators such as Wing, a unit of Alphabet, and Flytrex. But to date, the company hasn't manufactured its own drones.
DoorDash said it plans to continue those partnerships. A spokesman said beyond building physical drones, the company plans to operate an end-to-end system that handles routing, order fulfillment and setting up designated areas where stores and restaurants can hand off items to drones.
"The challenge we see in scaling drone delivery is actually the end-to-end system," the spokesman said. "That's where our advantage is, and why we're investing in this space."
The rollout of drone delivery in the U.S. has so far been limited to specific regions. Drone operators have faced regulatory obstacles, community concerns about noise, safety and privacy, and limitations when flying in inclement weather.
Companies using this delivery method are working to amass enough consumer demand to bring down the cost per delivery compared with using bikes or cars.
"Today you're driving a 3,000-pound car with a driver clogging up streets to basically deliver a 1-pound burrito or something," said Robin Riedel, executive vice president for aviation and mobility at Metropolis Technologies, an artificial-intelligence infrastructure company. "When you have drones, you can be faster [and] you can be a lot cheaper."
DoorDash said its drones will be made in America with most components sourced within the U.S. It declined to disclose how many drones it has made so far, but noted it will announce later this year when the aircraft will start delivering customer orders.
DoorDash has experimented with other new methods of delivery. The company last year rolled out its own autonomous delivery robot called Dot, which fulfills orders in the Phoenix area and Fremont, Calif.
In the first quarter of this year, the delivery provider grew revenue and orders by double digits as more customers used its services. Profit fell about 5% compared with 2025 because of higher expenses. The company is due to report its latest earnings on Aug. 5.
