Zipline lands departing Verily CFO, Tesla veteran Deepak Ahuja

Zipline has hired departing Verily CFO andTesla veteran Deepak Ahuja as its first chief business and financial officer, an appointment that comes as the drone delivery and logistics startup is speeding up its global expansion.

Ahuja will start at Verily Life Sciences on September 30. Verily said it raised $1 billion and that Ahuja was leaving the company. Ahuja will be in charge of Zipline's financial operations. Africa, where Zipline started, will not be included in the role.

In order to maintain continuity, Daniel Marfo will continue to oversee existing operations in the region. In 2020, Marfo was promoted to senior vice president of Zipline.

Zipline operates in Japan and the US. The company is going to expand to Utah later this year through a partnership with Intermountain Health, and is going to start operations with Multicare Health System in Washington in four years.

Zipline will be focused on building its business in the United States and other regions.

Ahuja comes to Zipline with decades of experience in the financial world. His most visible role was as the first CFO of the company from 2008 to 2015. After years of losses, Ahuja was at the helm of the company and it became profitable.

Last year, Zipline raised $250 million in venture capital. The company has raised nearly half a billion dollars.

The company has developed a system for launching and landing drones. It was able to deliver medical supplies via its drones. Zipline later expanded to other countries. FAA Part 135 approved it for its long-range drone delivery service in the US.

A number of partnerships in the past two years shows the company's desire to expand. Novant Health in North Carolina uses Zipline to deliver medical equipment and personal protective gear, as well as health and wellness products for Walmart.

Ahuja was particularly interested in Zipline's vertical integration that allowed it to deliver massive scale at high levels of automation and integration, and at low operational cost.

He said in the post that the solution has an amazing and seamless user experience and creates minimal environmental noise. Zipline is in a unique position to solve the problem at scale. Zipline's systems-based solution is starting to be appreciated by executives in the healthcare and e- commerce space.