[1] Founded in 2014, the company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with engineering operations in Tallinn, Estonia, and Helsinki, Finland.

[5] Heinla and Friis had taken part in a NASA competition, the Centennial Challenge, to design and build autonomous robots to retrieve geological samples.

While their team (named 'Kuukulgur', or 'Moon Rover') did not win the competition, Heinla and Friis began working to apply the technology they had developed to the problem of last mile delivery following a meeting in London.

[8] In April 2018, Starship launched its autonomous delivery service in Milton Keynes in partnership with Co-op and Tesco.

[12] In January 2019, Starship partnered with Sodexo to launch robot food delivery services at George Mason University in Virginia, US.

[29][30] The robots have loudspeakers to communicate with humans they meet, with a range of optional voices and characters and the ability to play music.

[31] Users order Starship deliveries using the company's app or through the existing platforms of retail partners.

[25] Between 2018 and 2021, Starship Technologies worked with Milton Keynes Council to conduct a study reviewing the impact of zero-emissions robots in cities.

[49] Starship also announced a partnership with Veriff in January 2022 to provide authentication and re-verification services for its fleet of autonomous delivery robots in the UK.

[50] This partnership made Starship the first company to create a fully autonomous end-to-end delivery service for age-restricted items.