Next Gen Cargo Transportation

 Zipline International Inc. is an American company that designs, manufactures, and operates delivery drones. The company operates distribution centers in Rwanda, Ghana, Japan, the United States, and Nigeria, with signed agreements to begin service in Cote d'Ivoire and Kenya. As of May 2023, its drones have made more than 600,000 commercial deliveries and flown more than 40 million autonomous miles.

The company's drones deliver whole blood, platelets, frozen plasma, and cryoprecipitate along with medical products, including vaccines, infusions, and common medical commodities. As of September 2021, more than 75 percent of blood deliveries in Rwanda outside of Kigali use Zipline drones. In April 2019 in Ghana, the company began using drones to deliver vaccines, blood, and medicines. In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted a Part 107 waiver to Zipline's partner organization Novant Health for the delivery of medical supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) to medical facilities in North Carolina.

The company also offers delivery services for non-medical products as well, including partnerships with Walmart which started in 2021 and with Sweetgreen which was announced in 2023. Its website features uses for restaurants, groceries, convenience shopping and e-commerce.

The company designs and manufactures its drones, and builds and operates its distribution centers, which also serve as a drone airport. Medical staff at remote hospitals and clinics place orders with Zipline, a fulfillment operator receives this order and prepares the medical products into a special delivery package with a parachute.

A Zipline flight operator then packs the medical products into a drone and performs pre-flight checks. The drone is then launched with a supercapacitor-powered electric catapult launcher and accelerates from 0 to 70 miles per hour (0 to 113 km/h) in 0.33 seconds. The drone then flies itself to its delivery site while a remote pilot at each distribution center monitors all drones in flight. The drone descends to 20–35 metres (66–115 ft) before dropping the package under a paper parachute. A payload can land within a 5 m (16 ft) diameter landing zone. The drone then returns to the distribution center and lands by its tail hook catching an arresting gear, similar to airplanes landing on an aircraft carrier. A Zipline distribution center can deliver medical supplies reliably anywhere within 80 km (50 mi), even accounting for mountainous terrain and severe weather.