The makers of AI-powered robotic food assembly systems, Chef Robotics, have secured $43.1 million in fresh Series A funding, which consists of $22.5 million in equipment financing debt and $20.6 million in equity.
Construct Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Promus Ventures, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures, HCVC, MaC Venture Capital, Red and Blue Ventures, Tau Partners, Alumni Ventures, Siddhi Capital, and BOLD Capital Partners were among the investors in the equity round, which was led by Avataar Ventures.
The business attributes its quick growth rate of meals created to the real-world AI data engine flywheel, which will gain impetus from the fundraising round as Chef accelerates production deployments of its robotic systems. In order to prevent Chef's clients from having to pay for their robots out of pocket, the debt will be utilized to finance Chef's robotic systems for Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS).
With the addition of this money, Chef has raised $65.6 million in total, including $26.75 million in financing for equipment through Silicon Valley Bank, a part of First Citizens Bank.
According to Chef, robot deployments at companies including Amy's Kitchen, Sunbasket, Chef Bombay, and Cafe Spice have generated over 44 million servings. Its AI models are trained using the information gathered from every meal that is put together.
Robotics is really having a moment right now. The innovations in AI have unlocked the potential of Embodied AI for robotics. We believe we're in the pole position to scale given all the real-world production training data we already have," says Rajat Bhageria, Founder and CEO of Chef Robotics.
"AI in the physical world is happening right now with robotics. Food is one of the largest markets in the world. Industrial AI is already winning, and food packaging automation is quietly transforming how we get our meals. Chef has quickly cemented its standing as the industry leader in AI-enabled robotics for meal assembly at over 44M servings produced and counting. We look forward to this exciting partnership with Chef Robotics as they expand their global leadership," said Mohan Kumar, Founder and Managing Partner of Avataar Ventures.
