As a former semiconductor analyst, I realized one truism of the tech world: makers of component building blocks for any hardware product eventually move up the stack, integrating with software solutions so their OEM partners see them as the preferred foundation on which to build their products.
So it’s not surprising to hear that one of the world’s leading makers of induction cooking hardware, E.G.O., has partnered with Fresco, a company that provides software to enable smart kitchen hardware solutions. The deal, announced at IFA last week, will allow E.G.O. to add smart kitchen functionality to its induction cooking systems and appliance control systems.
For Fresco, the partnership makes it possible to fast-track appliance partner integration. Because the software is integrated at the component level, it will require less customization for each new system powered by their smart kitchen software.
“We realized instead of trying to partner with all of the brands individually, that it’d be much smarter to go to the source,” said Ben Harris, CEO of Fresco, in an interview at IFA. “So we met E.G.O. here a year ago and aligned on the potential future of a partnership. I’m delighted to be here at IFA to now announce the kickoff of the partnership and sort of where this can ultimately go.”
According to Harris, the partnership means Fresco no longer needs to integrate one-on-one with dozens of different brands. Instead, by working directly with E.G.O., Fresco’s technology can come “available out of the box.” Harris explained: “It’s two things, both from a sales point of view, that we don’t need to speak to all hundred brands, but also we don’t need to do the small individual integrations with every one of them. The integration is available out of the box.”
It has been interesting to watch Fresco (formerly Drop) evolve from its early days as a maker of a connected kitchen scale to a software company that, historically, had to do significant customization for each appliance partner. With its new partnership with E.G.O., my guess is this will accelerate their partner growth while also making a smart software/connectivity stack a more standard part of the broader bill of materials for new appliances.
Fresco has remained fairly true to its early focus (post-scale) of being a smart kitchen software ingredient provider, while others like SideChef and Innit have focused more on commerce and, more recently, food and wellness-related AI solutions for CPG partners..
You can watch my conversation with Ben Harris at IFA below.
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