There has been a significant move from a project that needed further development to something resembling a real business model. SoftBank Robotics America’s collaboration with Matternet reveals the more important trend in US logistics, which involves focusing less on how drone delivery could be possible and more on how it could become a repeatable process. For hospitals, commercial campuses, and supply chains, where road traffic congestion and the burden of maintaining staff put considerable stress on the last mile of delivery, that is a crucial development.
Matternet already offers a product line that stands out in terms of regulation. The company’s M2 drone holds the only Type Certificate ever granted to any delivery drone in the US, while Matternet says it has been the first to obtain production certificates for its scalable production. Those achievements mean that Matternet’s system of drone delivery is not yet another prototype from the experimental stage that is common for much of the drone sector. According to Matternet, its aircraft can deliver loads weighing up to 2 kilograms over a distance of up to 20 kilometers, while the overall system includes landing stations, automatic battery swap system, and a route and delivery control software system. That combination is what the enterprises are looking for not the individual drone but an entire aerial logistics system.
SoftBank Robotics America comes into play in a somewhat different way. Instead of designing its own drones, the company positions itself as a company enabling hardware and software to operate effectively as a service. According to the new deal, SoftBank will help with manufacturing and installing Matternet’s ground station infrastructure, which has long been the key to turning the drone delivery system from a demo project into a regular service. “The challenge is not the technology, but rather operationalizing the technology such that it produces consistent measurable outcomes,” noted Brady Watkins, president and general manager of SoftBank Robotics America.
The focus on infrastructure also reveals a lot about why healthcare facilities remain the main testing area for drone delivery. Healthcare facilities demand reliable services, not technological novelties. Over the past five years, Matternet has completed tens of thousands of commercial deliveries of cargo in urban and suburban areas both in the US and in Europe, most of them involving movement of healthcare related items when a quick delivery could affect lab results and treatment decisions. As stated by Katya Akudovich, vice president of SoftBank Robotics America, the partnership was aimed at vertical markets such as healthcare where speed and reliability are mission critical. Again, that is not about impressing customers with technology but ensuring a consistent and efficient logistics process.
Matternet is now starting to test its systems outside of healthcare organizations. The company introduced an automated home delivery program involving M2 drones that use a tether drop system and deliver goods in the airspace above residential districts of Mountain View and Sunnyvale in the Silicon Valley. The decision shows that the company understands consumer delivery as a future step on top of the healthcare and enterprise markets, not a substitute for them.
Overall, however, the issue of airspace management becomes more pressing with each day as the urban airspace is becoming more and more populated with drones. As reported by FAA, there were over a million recreational drone pilots, and almost 500,000 registered commercial drones in the airspace as early as spring 2025. With so many drones flying in the skies of major cities, operators need a more regulated and data controlled airspace system in which to operate. That is the reason for the particular importance of the current collaboration: it connects the drone delivery system to the operator that can ensure its smooth running.