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Walmart and DroneUp have ended their last-mile drone delivery partnership months after the companies scaled back their collaboration.

The contract between the retail giant and the drone delivery company has expired, both companies confirmed. Along with the contract expiration, Walmart is no longer an investor in DroneUp, according to a report from Axios.

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“We are excited about the momentum and positive customer response we’ve experienced around drone delivery,” said a Walmart spokesperson. “This service will continue to evolve as we learn more about customer preferences and drone capabilities, and by focusing our efforts in Dallas-Fort Worth, we can learn more about the potential to scale this innovative delivery option for Walmart’s customers.”

Walmart and DroneUp had operated together in four major metropolitan areas through much of 2024: Dallas-Fort Worth; Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Tampa, Fla. But the mass merchant determined it would focus its efforts exclusively on Texas in August, suspending drone delivery offerings at the other three locales.

Prior to the contract expiration, the companies also offered drone delivery near their respective headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. and Virginia Beach, Va.

Walmart first partnered with DroneUp in 2020 to launch trial deliveries of at-home Covid-19 self-collection kits from the retailer’s stores. After “hundreds of successful deliveries,” Walmart invested with the delivery company the next year.

“We value the lessons learned while working together and will apply those learnings to our operations in the future,” a DroneUp spokesperson said in a statement. “As of today, our contract and operations together have come to an end. We remain optimistic about the future of drone delivery.”

Walmart’s drone deliveries will continue via its partnerships with collaborators like Flytrex, Wing and Zipline, the latter two of which are still shipping for the retailer throughout the DFW area.

Dallas-Fort Worth was built up as a drone delivery home base of sorts for Walmart to kick off 2024. The company announced last January that it already had scaled drone delivery up to 75 percent of the population in the wider metro area across more than 30 towns and municipalities.

As part of that statement, Walmart said the drone deliveries could get items to shoppers in 30 minutes or less, with some deliveries happening as fast as 10 minutes.