Serve Robotics acquires Diligent Robotics, expands physical AI platform beyond the sidewalk

Autonomous robotic delivery technology company Serve Robotics announced that it has agreed to acquire general-purpose healthcare robotics and embodied AI provider Diligent Robotics.

Serve Robotics said that the transaction marks the first expansion of the company’s autonomy platform into indoor environments, with hospitals as one of the most high-impact settings for robotics.

Pursuant to the merger agreement, Serve Robotics said that the aggregate transaction will consist of shares of the company’s common stock with a value of $29.0 million paid to Diligent shareholders, subject to net debt and other adjustments, including a potential earn-out of up to $5.3 million upon the achievement of specified milestones. At the closing of the transaction, Serve Robotics said that all Diligent options and Diligent warrants will be cancelled for no consideration.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026.

Autonomous deliveries in healthcare settings

Founded in 2017, Diligent’s vision is to create socially intelligent robot assistants that improve human labor productivity. Since its inception, Diligent has raised over $100 million in financing.

“Diligent was founded to help healthcare teams do more with their limited resources,” said Andrea Thomaz, co-founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics. “By joining Serve, we can build on the autonomy and AI we’ve deployed across live hospital fleets and scale it faster, enabling more intelligent, capable robots in care environments. Together, we’re unlocking the next phase of practical, real-world robotics and advancing a people-plus-robots model that prioritizes human impact.”

Diligent has developed Moxi, an autonomous hospital delivery robot that supports nurses and hospital staff, allowing them to focus on time with patients and therefore improve the quality of care.

Moxi is deployed in over 25 hospital facilities across the U.S. Diligent said this represents one of the largest commercial deployments of mobile manipulation robots working alongside people. Moxi robots have completed over 1.25 million autonomous deliveries.

Diligent Robotics will continue its operations as a subsidiary of Serve under Thomaz’s leadership.

Hospitals expand Serve’s delivery areas

Serve Robotics said that indoor environments, such as hospitals, add a powerful new dimension to the company’s physical AI flywheel. The company, which serves several American markets with its food delivery robots, also acquired Vayu Robotics in mid-2025.

The companies said that their combination is expected to:

• Further improve and scale the deployment of Moxi hospital robots, bringing service robots to support more clinicians across the country
• Accelerate Serve’s AI and autonomy flywheel, as every robot learns from every robot, compressing deployment timelines and expanding where the platform can operate next
• Validate healthcare use cases that deliver high revenue per robot and improved blended fleet economics for Serve.
• Accelerate the adoption of Serve’s autonomy platform, and extend its reach across industries where indoor navigation and manipulation are required to accomplish tasks in dense environments, such as opening doors or operating elevators
• Drive long-term efficiency across Serve and Moxi use cases, through shared supply chain, technology infrastructure and operational excellence
• Deliver revenue growth, with each hospital facility deploying Moxi robots expected to range between $200k to $400k in annual sales

“This acquisition accelerates Serve’s evolution from a robotic delivery company into a full-stack autonomy platform,” said Dr. Ali Kashani, CEO of Serve Robotics. “We’ve proven we can deploy robots safely and reliably at scale in complex urban environments. By extending our platform beyond sidewalks and into hospitals, we’re expanding where our physical AI can operate, learn and create value. Over time, Serve and Moxi will share one autonomy stack, one data flywheel, and one operating system for robots that work alongside people across city sidewalks and critical institutions. This is how autonomy becomes infrastructure.”