Chef Robotics has escaped the robot cooking graveyard and said it’s thriving — and here’s why

Chef Robotics CEO Rajat Bagheria likes to tell people – correctly – that his industry is a veritable graveyard for startups. Whether you’re talking about it chobutix, A salad-making startup that was later acquired close By DoorDash, or Zume, a $400 million attempt to “disrupt” pizza delivery It collapsed in 2023efforts to automate a process that until now required opposable thumbs and a conscious mind haven’t always gone smoothly.

Bhagiria believes he has discovered the workaround. The premise is simple, even if the implementation isn’t: use Robotic arms powered by artificial intelligence To take labor out of food production on a large scale. Originally, the chef sought to do this in fast-casual restaurants, the kind common in American cities. But the company pivoted early, finding success instead in food manufacturing, where it now serves institutional clients like Amy’s Kitchen and Chef Bombay, and works with one of the country’s largest school lunch providers.

Now, the company says it has passed a milestone: 100 million shares. What exactly is a “service”? A company spokesperson defines it as “the portion of food that our robots place on a meal tray.” So it’s not a meal in itself, but instead represents “one component” of a complete meal, the rep says. The bottom line: Having ditched traditional dining venues and instead turned to a larger, institutional clientele, the chef is busier than ever.

Bhagiria says the company’s next step is to expand into what it calls “smaller kitchens.” As for the shape of these kitchens, the definition may surprise you. One of Chef’s recently signed small clients is “one of the largest airline catering companies in the world,” he told me.

Other types of places are also being pursued. The company said it plans to expand into “ghost kitchens” — operations without any physical restaurant that provide meals for the likes of DoorDash. Ultimately, the company wants to expand further into fast-casual restaurants, stadiums and prisons, Bhagiria adds.

Bhageria also says that data generated from 100 million lots is fed into its system Artificial intelligence models For food processing and packaging, helping these models become smarter and more capable. He adds that “the inherent nature of food” — a slippery, malleable product with no predictable proportions — makes it difficult for robots to handle. Through its prototypes, Chef hopes to continue improving the technology until the robots gradually get better at their job, which will help the company expand.