Swiss-Mile, which is designing and building quadrupeds and enabling them with embodied AI, has rebranded to a new name: RIVR.
The Zurich, Switzerland-based company specializes in building physical AI for last-mile delivery, using robots plus artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency and sustainability. As Swiss-Mile, it was known for its integration of artificial neural networks into robots with wheels and legs.
RIVR said its technology addresses the growing demand for smarter and greener logistics solutions in urban environments.
RIVR is hiring
The renamed company has a dozen open positions, including a senior product manager. RIVR has been filling a number of leadership positions over the past year, including hiring Razwan Ghafoor as head of product and Ben Simmen as head of revenue in the middle of 2024.
Marko Bjelonic, co-founder and CEO of Swiss-Mile, said he is looking forward to being more involved in operations and production. Bringing in experienced people will enable him to focus more on growing the business, Bjelonic said.
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Rebranding precedes field tests
The decision to rebrand a company is never an easy one. The announcement followed Swiss-Mile’s successful $22 million seed round in August 2024, co-led by Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon, through Bezos Expeditions and HSG. The company said at the time that the funding demonstrated the industry’s confidence in its vision and technology.
With field testing scheduled to begin this year, RIVR plans to show how its innovations can transform one of the most challenging and critical aspects of e-commerce logistics. RIVR is currently closing another funding round, aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of its delivery robots.
“It was time for an evolution of our brand,” said Bjeonic. “We’ve found product-market fit and are actively working with major players in the logistics sector.”
“Swiss-Mile served us well when we were a small team emerging from university, but our ambitions extend far beyond,” he explained. “We aim to become one of the world’s leading robotics companies, and for that vision, we need a name that will stand the test of time. RIVR carries a strong and deep meaning—one that can evolve with us as we move from proof of concept to scaling to hundreds of thousands of robots.”
The company is focused on logistics applications for its wheeled quadruped robot. By equipping it with wheels, RIVR said the mobile robot can efficiently move over long distances using its wheels, while also being capable of traversing curbs, stairs and other obstacles using legged locomotion as needed. Its a unique kinematic design that solves many of the challenges of last-mile delivery, the company asserted.
“Working with major logistics carriers to deploy our robots for last-mile delivery marks a significant milestone in our mission to transform the space,” stated Bjelonic.
He was recently a guest on The Robot Report Podcast, where he talked about the evolution of the robot.
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