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Grubhub Ends Partnership to Supply Driverless Robots with Russian Company Yandex

In July 2021, Grubhub (a unit of Just Eat Takeaway.com) entered a multi-year agreement with Yandex Self-Driving Group to deploy autonomous delivery robots across U.S. college campuses. The initiative aimed to revolutionize on-campus food delivery—Yandex’s rovers could navigate pedestrian zones, crosswalks, and sidewalks—especially valuable in areas inaccessible to vehicles (Yandex, Wikipedia).

By August 2021, the first batch of robots was operating at Ohio State University, followed by deployment at the University of Arizona in November (verdictfoodservice.com, Wikipedia).

However, by March 2022, Grubhub announced it was terminating the partnership and removing around 100 Yandex robots from campuses such as Ohio State and Arizona (insidelogistics.ca, Yahoo Tech). The company stated:

“We will be ending our partnership with Yandex. We’re working with our campus partners on alternate service options as we shift away from Yandex over time.” (Yahoo Tech, verdictfoodservice.com)

The decision followed growing global corporate disengagement from Russian firms in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Although Grubhub did not explicitly cite the conflict, the timing aligns with widespread divestment trends (Yahoo Tech, The Lantern).

Following the split, Yandex confirmed the end of the collaboration but offered no further details (Yahoo Tech, verdictfoodservice.com). Meanwhile, Yandex paused its U.S. operations—including autonomous delivery and robotaxi projects—as sanctions and geopolitical pressures mounted (Wikipedia).

Fast forward to early 2025, and Grubhub has since formed a new robotics partnership—this time with Avride, a former Yandex spin-off now independent and U.S.-based. The collaboration has already seen deployments of new delivery robot fleets at Ohio State University, marking a renewed push into automated campus delivery (Reuters).