DoorDash building its own drone as it launches in-house drone delivery

Driving the news: DoorDash is starting DoorDash Air after becoming the eighth drone operator in the U.S. to obtain Part 135 air carrier certification.

• "We want drone delivery to work for any merchant, anywhere," Harrison Shih, head of DoorDash Air, said in a statement. "We're building the full stack to make that possible from the ground infrastructure to the drone itself, and the handoff systems that make it work together seamlessly."

State of play: DoorDash already has drone delivery partnerships with Alphabet's Wing and an Israeli company called Flytrex.

• Those deals will remain in place, but the company will now develop its own custom-made drone and manage many of its own air deliveries.

The bottom line: The company says drone deliveries under five miles average fewer than 25 minutes.