Does Serve Robotics' Vayu Acquisition Advance Autonomy and Efficiency?

Serve Robotics Inc.’s SERV recent acquisition of Vayu marks a key step in strengthening its autonomy and efficiency roadmap. The company is building a robotics and autonomy as a service platform that brings together its autonomy stack, hardware and urban operations model. The addition of Vayu supports this framework by adding large-scale AI models and a simulation-powered data engine, helping the company accelerate progress in physical AI. 

In the third quarter of 2025, the company advanced execution across operations, engineering and finance. The company expanded its fleet, enhanced the technology base and moved with greater precision. Vayu became one of two integrations completed during the quarter, positioning the platform to deepen its competitive moat. The acquisition brings expertise in urban robot navigation and is expected to improve model development and autonomy performance over time. 

As Vayu is integrated into the autonomy stack, the company expects benefits that support leadership in autonomous delivery. These include lower data infrastructure costs, stronger operational metrics and faster model improvements. The integration also helps convert operational data into new monetization layers, reinforcing the company’s innovation position. 

The company continues to invest in capabilities tied to autonomy and robotics, including the combination of Vayu and Phantom Auto. These moves support a broader goal to scale efficiently, deploy capital strategically and build a durable business in the emerging age of physical AI. The company highlights a strengthening flywheel driven by more robots, richer data and smarter AI, setting the foundation for long-term efficiency gains and improved economics.

Facing the Competition: How SERV Stacks Up Against UBER and DASH

Serve Robotics continues to expand its footprint in autonomous last-mile delivery, entering a space increasingly shaped by larger players such as Uber Technologies UBER and DoorDash DASH. Both companies have been investing heavily in automation and last-mile logistics, testing robotic delivery in select markets and partnering with startups to accelerate deployment.

Uber, through its Uber Eats segment, has piloted sidewalk delivery robots in collaboration with Cartken and Motional, aiming to reduce delivery costs and improve efficiency. DoorDash is also expanding the robotic delivery trials, leveraging its scale and strong merchant network to maintain a competitive edge. Serve Robotics may be more nimble, but Uber’s global delivery reach and DoorDash’s established infrastructure create meaningful competitive pressure.

As SERV scales its autonomous fleet and expands operations, the key question is whether it can compete on speed, reliability and market coverage against these larger platforms. The dominance of Uber and DoorDash could test Serve Robotics’ ability to capture sustained market share in urban delivery, even as it continues to strengthen the autonomy platform and cost efficiency at scale.

SERV Stock’s Price Performance & Valuation Trend

Shares of this leading autonomous sidewalk delivery company have surged 12.2% in the past year, outperforming the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry, as you can see below.

SERV’s Share Price Performance

From a valuation standpoint, SERV trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 36.46, significantly higher than the industry’s average, as shown below.

SERV Valuation

Earnings Estimate Trend of SERV Stock

SERV’s bottom-line estimates for 2025 have widened to a loss of $1.55 from $1.30 over the past 30 days. The estimated figure for 2025 is wider than the loss of 67 cents per share reported a year ago.

SERV’s Earnings Estimate Revision

SERV currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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