Zipline Valued at $21.5B as Walmart Puts 300 More Drone Sites on the Map

Zipline’s drone delivery business just got a lot bigger. The California company has closed a $1.5 billion funding round that pushes its valuation to **$21.5 billion**, and alongside it signed a multi-year deal with Walmart to blanket the United States with hundreds of new delivery sites.

The two partners currently run 21 active drone sites together. The new agreement adds 300 more. That’s not an incremental expansion — it’s a different order of magnitude, and it signals that Walmart sees aerial drop-offs as a long-term part of its logistics rather than an experiment.

Who Put Money In

The round was led by Paradigm, WCM Investment Management and Layer Global. Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Uber, Tiger Global, J.P. Morgan, ARK Invest and Salesforce Ventures all chipped in.

Where does the cash go? Zipline says it will build out U.S. manufacturing capacity, add headcount, and push toward a nationwide drone delivery network. No small ambition for a company that started out carrying blood bags.

The Numbers Behind the Bet: $1.5B raised · $21.5B valuation · 21 current Walmart sites growing to 300+ · Platform 2 payload of 8 lbs inside a 10-mile radius · Platform 1 range of 120 miles round trip

From Rwanda to the U.S. Heartland

Zipline was founded in 2014 and cut its teeth in Africa, flying autonomous drones loaded with blood supplies in Rwanda before moving into Ghana and Nigeria. Its first American operations came in 2020, shuttling medical equipment to Novant Health in North Carolina. The Walmart relationship dates to 2021.

The real turning point, though, was 2022 — when the Federal Aviation Administration handed Zipline Part 135 air carrier certification. That cleared the regulatory path for long-range commercial deliveries, and partnerships have piled up since, including a tie-up with Uber earlier this year.

Today Zipline’s drones move food, retail goods, agricultural products and medical supplies across five African countries, multiple U.S. cities and Japan.

Two Aircraft, Two Jobs

• Platform 2: the home-delivery workhorse, built for loads up to eight pounds and trips within 10 miles.
• Platform 1: the long-haul option for enterprise and government clients, capable of 120 miles round trip.

One number worth watching: Zipline’s share of revenue coming from delivery climbed from 10.8% to 34.9% between March and October of this year. The company clearly wants that line to keep climbing — and with Walmart multiplying its footprint, the volume should follow.

Whether regulators, local authorities and neighborhood residents keep pace with 300 new sites is the open question. Drone delivery has spent years promising scale; this is one of the first deals that actually buys it.