Cloud restaurant network RobinFood (née Muy) announced today it has raised a $16 million debt funding round from MGM Sustainable Energy Fund II LP. This brings RobinFood’s total funding to date to $36 million, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.
As Muy, the Colombia-based company made a name for itself around Latin America though its network of ghost kitchens. Muy recently decided to rebrand, bringing both its physical and virtual restaurant initiatives under the same RobinFood brand.
Customers can order delivery-only meals from multiple different virtual restaurant brands operated by RobinFood, including Muy, Just Burgers, and El Original. Meals can be ordered via the company’s mobile app, or with a touchscreen kiosk at one of its brick-and-mortar locations, which offer limited seating. These physical locations feature automat-like cubbies where customers retrieve the food, essentially eliminating interactions between restaurant staff and customers. RobinFood’s tech stack, meanwhile, merges its virtual restaurants and kitchens and its physical spaces into the same system, for smoother operations.
The company said in today’s press release that it plans to use the new financing round to continue its growth across Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, adding 3,500 new “brand-locations” in Latin America over the next five years. Its goal is to sell “more than one billion dollars annually by 2026.”
If that seems like a hefty number, consider that Euromonitor recently predicted the ghost kitchen market would be worth $1 trillion by 2030. Around the world, ghost kitchens and networks of virtual restaurants are taking over at a time when many brick-and-mortar locations are going out of business and the pandemic has fueled a greater desire among consumers for delivery and takeout meals.
RobinFood’s marriage of ghost kitchens and physical spaces is yet-another take on the ever-evolving ghost kitchen model. And the company’s funding to-date suggests there is plenty of opportunity in Latin America for ghost kitchens, and restaurant tech in general.
RobinFood’s news today follows recent fundraises from other ghost kitchen companies, including Indonesia’s Yummy Corporation ($12 million), U.S.-based Virtual Kitchen ($20 million), and iKcon in Dubai ($5 million).
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