The future of delivery is being tested in the skies of Finland

According to a detailed report from TechCrunchDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → , a quiet experiment in suburban Finland is offering a glimpse into how last-mile logistics could be rebuilt from the ground up. In Espoo, just outside Helsinki, a three-way partnership between Huuva , Wolt , and Manna is testing what happens when cloud kitchens, delivery platforms, and autonomous drones operate as a single system rather than separate layers of the value chain.

Huuva sits at the center of the story. Founded to solve a simple but persistent problem — the lack of food variety in European suburbs — the company expanded from cloud kitchens into a distributed logistics network for restaurant brands. Wolt, now part of DoorDash, provides the consumer gateway and delivery infrastructure that already reaches deep into Nordic cities. And Manna, the Irish drone delivery startup with more than 50,000 flights already logged in Dublin, brings the technology to move food through the air rather than on the ground.

When combined, the system looks almost like a vertical integration experiment. Orders come in through Wolt, food is prepared by Huuva, and Manna’s drones handle the final mile. The drones launch from a shared pad next to a Wolt Market, carry about two kilograms, and fly predefined routes that avoid traffic entirely. For customers, nothing about the ordering experience changes — except the food arrives faster, hotter, and more consistently.

The significance of the experiment isn’t just novelty. It’s economics. A typical delivery in Finland costs around €5–6. By Huuva’s estimates, drone delivery could push that down to around €1 at scale. That kind of shift doesn’t just improve margins — it changes the viability of delivering to low-density suburbs, historically the hardest geography for food platforms to serve profitably.

Finland’s harsh climate makes the test even more meaningful. High winds, heavy rain, snow, and long winters create a natural stress test for last-mile operations. Manna’s drones, already hardened in similar Irish weather, fly with full-battery swaps, redundant safety systems, and a failsafe parachute. Mission Control remains in Ireland, where operators validate LiDAR maps, approve landing zones, and authorize each drop-off in real time.

On the ground in Espoo, the system has already become routine. Local staff now handle double-digit deliveries per day and are preparing for their first full operational winter. Wolt’s broader ecosystem also provides optionality: the company already deploys sidewalk robots from Coco and Starship, and DoorDash has its own autonomous robot program. Drones become another tool in an increasingly diversified logistics stack.

Looking ahead, Huuva is exploring expansion to additional locations, and the partnership could become strategically relevant if DoorDash decides to deepen its drone capabilities — a possibility TechCrunch notes amid ongoing industry rumors. For now, Espoo serves as a real-world case study: a small, cold Finnish suburb quietly operating one of Europe’s most advanced food-delivery systems, and hinting at what the future of logistics could look like when the right pieces line up.

Source:
TechCrunch

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