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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Is LG’s Majority Stake in Bear Robotics a Sign That Food Robotics Is About to Have Its Moment?

Late last week, LG Electronics announced it had acquired a majority stake in Bear Robotics, increasing its ownership of the San Francisco-based startup from 21% to 51%. According to South Korean newspaper The Dong-A Ilbo, LG initially acquired its 21% stake in early 2024 for $60 million. The company values its latest stake at $180 million, giving Bear Robotics an overall valuation of $600 million.

While a 60%-of-a-billion-dollar valuation might not compare to the staggering figures often associated with AI startups—though recent events, such as China’s DeepThink’s troubles, may prompt reevaluations—it’s a really good valuation for a food tech company, especially in the challenging food robotics sector.

Where Are All The Unicorns?

Anyone who’s been following The Spoon (we were the first publication to write about Bear Robotics in early 2018) knows food robotics startups have had a tough go of it the last few years. High-profile flameouts like Zume have dominated headlines, while quieter exits, such as Mezli and Vebu, have underscored how challenging this is.

Vebu, formerly Wavemaker Labs, played a pivotal role in launching Miso Robotics, creator of the Flippy burger bot, along with other food robotics concepts like Piestro and Bobacino. However, by the time Serve Robotics acquired Vebu Labs last fall, its only notable product in the portfolio was the Autocado, an avocado-coring robot adopted by Chipotle.

Bear Robotics, however, has achieved steady traction in the restaurant and food service industry. This success, combined with LG’s strategic plans to develop a service robot platform for commercial and home applications, has driven its higher valuation. As The Dong-A Ilbo reported, LG plans to create an integrated solution platform that “encompasses commercial, industrial, and home robots” using Bear Robotics’ software to manage various robot products through a unified system.

Service Robots Over Food-Making Robots

What Bear doesn’t provide LG with is an actual food-making robot; instead, it offers a fairly open platform for service robotics in restaurants and other hospitality spaces. At this point, it’s still unclear whether there will be the same level of interest in food-making robots. Some players, like Picnic and Miso, continue to make progress, but they face significant competition for what is undoubtedly a limited number of big quick-service and fast-casual chains that have yet to acquire their own solutions.

Could Serve and Starship be next?

As major tech companies and consumer brands increasingly view robotics as critical to their future strategies—in what Nvidia’s CEO has called “physical AI”—it’s likely that we’ll see more acquisitions in the service and delivery robotics space. Companies with limited proprietary IP (and my sense is LG didn’t have much here) may be particularly desperate to snap up firms similar to Bear that have been around enough to create a foundation of discernable IP and a varied set of products and build a customer base.

Potential acquisition candidates include Serve Robotics, known for its sidewalk delivery robots, and Starship Technologies, a leader in autonomous delivery systems. Both companies have gained traction but operate in an environment where consolidation is becoming inevitable.

Bear Brings Its Robots To Hospitals Through Partnership With Sodexo

When John Ha started Bear Robotics, he was a computer scientist with a restaurant side hustle who thought he might make the lives of his servers easier through automation technology. Since then, his robots have shown up in restaurants across the globe to lift some of the burden of physically demanding restaurant service jobs.

As it turns out, there are many other physically demanding jobs, one of which is nursing, which is why this week’s announcement by Bear of their deal with Sodexo makes sense. According to the company, they’ve closed a deal with food service giant Sodexo, where Bear’s robots will support staff and patient care within healthcare facilities.

According to a report from McKinsey & Company, the potential for automation to take on mundane tasks could free up nursing activities by 15 percent, allowing healthcare workers to focus more on patient care. Furthermore, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the healthcare industry will grow 16 percent from 2020 to 2030, adding about 2.6 million new jobs.

“In partnership with Sodexo, we will be enhancing the future of work for healthcare professionals and maximizing the value of their time with patients through seamless integration of technology and efficiency,” said Juan Higueros, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Bear Robotics.

According to Bear, the pilot programs are set to launch in the United States in 2024.

Softbank Brings Yo-Kai, Servi & Pepper Together to Demo End-to-End Roboticized Food Service

Last week, the robotics division of Japanese tech and energy conglomerate Softbank showed off a future in which food service robots work hand in hand to deliver a meal to the customer.

The demo featured a Yo-Kai ramen vending machine, a Servi server robot from Bear Robotics, and Softbank’s own Pepper humanoid robot acting as a host and entertainer. The announcement and demo were part of a newly focused effort by Softbank Robotics to position itself as a robotics integrator.

The demo took place in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, at Softbank’s robot restaurant proof of concept store, Pepper House. As seen in the video below, the process flow for a food order starts with the consumer ordering on an app. From there, Yo-Kai starts preparing the ramen, and a cartoon version of Pepper appears on the screen preparing the ramen. Once the ramen is ready, Pepper sends a notification to Servi to approach the Yo-Kai. From there, a human removes the ramen from the Yo-Kai and places it on Servi’s tray, and Servi brings the hot ramen to the customer’s table.

ラーメン調理ロボット自動販売機　注文、調理、配膳すべて自動化 SoftBank Ramen robot vending machine, order,cook,serving ,automated

According to the Japanese publication Robotstart, Softbank envisions the installation of a robot hand on the Servi in the future to eliminate the need for a human server.

The demo is an interesting illustration of a fully automated robotic future. Most implementations of food robotics today involve single robots that automate only a portion of the food service process, whether prep, cooking or serving food itself. We haven’t seen many examples of the interconnection between the various parts of the process, mainly because startups building these machines tend to focus on the part of the process. Softbank hopes to change that by providing integration services to combine all the pieces into one integrated service offering.

If other more mature industries are any indication, the arrival of integration services to the food robotics business is a relatively natural evolution of a currently nascent industry. Other tech sectors like enterprise IT, telecom, and retail tech all have evolved integration consulting industries, and it’s not hard to imagine some of the more prominent players in adjacent spaces moving to become food robotics integrators like Softbank. The ability to tie together disparate robotic systems from different companies will become relatively commonplace and a necessary step to push the food robotics space beyond the small niche it resides in today and will be instrumental in building the fully automated restaurant concepts of tomorrow.

Bear Robotics Debuts Hospitality Robot Designed for Multistory Hotel & Office Buildings

At this week’s National Restaurant Show, hospitality robotics startup Bear Robotics unveiled a new bot targeted at multi-floor commercial and residential spaces.

Called Servi Lift, the new robot incorporates several firsts for a Bear product, including an interactive touch screen, security doors, a large video display screen for advertising, and mobile app integration.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Lift is the integration with commercial and residential security and elevator systems. While Bear is keeping the details quiet for now, the Lift is designed to navigate through office building community “gates” and call and operate elevators. My guess is the Lift likely requires a reasonably modern building system to enable direct integrations (I can’t see the Lift calling an elevator in some of those old NYC elevators, even some of the electric ones).

The Lift also features an automatic charging station to dock between deliveries. In the Lift intro video below, you can see the charging station situated in the dining area. It’s not hard to envision how new or recently retrofitted hospitality spaces in the future will have banks of robot charging stations as the reliance on automation in service roles grows.

The Lift also has a number of consumer interaction features, including app integration, the ability to notify customers they’ve arrived via phone call, and an on-robot touch screen where consumers can enter security passcodes to access their deliveries. While the interaction flow visualization looks seamless in the video above, my guess is that operator employees will accompany the robot in early deployments to make sure it arrives at its destination and the consumer experience is good.

Bear Robotics COO Juan Higueros teased the new delivery bot was on its way when I caught up with him in March: Higueros said the company plans to create a robot model that can travel to multiple floors in a building and create a larger model robot with additional carrying capacity. Beyond that, he said the company is also starting to think about other ways to bring automation to restaurants to help make the lives of service industry workers easier.

While the company was showing off a prototype of the Servi Lift in their booth at the National Restaurant Show this week, it’s not immediately clear when production units will be commercially available.

You can watch the Lift concept video below:

With 5 Thousand Robots Shipped, Bear Robotics Raises $81 Million Series B to Accelerate Growth and Expand into New Markets

Today restaurant robotics startup Bear Robotics announced they have raised an $81 million Series B. The round was led by IMM, with participation by Cleveland Avenue. The new funding brings the company’s total venture investment to $117 million.

Bear, co-founded by former ex-Googler and restauranteur John Ha, makes server robots that help hospitality businesses do everything from delivering food to tables to bussing tables. A few years ago, the company started trialing its first robot, Penny, in Ha’s restaurant, the Kang Nam Tofu House in Milpitas, CA. Since those early days, the company has shipped 5000 robots, with much of the volume coming last year.

The company has been on a roll lately, winning contracts with big names like Denny’s to Chili’s and a sports stadium or two. Bear’s biggest markets today are in South Korea and Japan, with the US quickly catching up. With their new funding, the company plans to expand further across the US, Europe, and additional countries in southeast Asia.

Bear Robotics founders. L to R: Juan Higueros (COO), Fangwei Li (CTO), John Ha (CEO)

According to Bear COO and cofounder Juan Higueros, the volume they’ve experienced over the past couple of years is the result of a concerted effort to ramp up mass production in 2020.

“It took us all of 2020 to get it done,” Higueros told me via Zoom. “We really started ramping in Q1 of 2020 in the US. It’s been growing at a nice steady pace ever since and we anticipate the US market will continue to grow.”

With its new funding, the company will be investing in new products as well as expand into new markets. Higueros said the company plans to create a robot model that can travel to multiple floors in a building and create a larger model robot with additional carrying capacity. Beyond that, he said the company is also starting to think about other ways to bring automation to restaurants to help make the lives of service industry workers easier.

“Little things like getting your water or getting your refills on orders. Things like that can be a little more automated.”

Higueros told me the company has already seen the benefits of working with one of its newest investors, Cleveland Avenue, a venture capital firm founded and led by former McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson.

“They’re great to work with just because of the depth of their bench,” said Higueros. “We’re talking folks that have like 30 years of experience at McDonald’s. If there’s somebody you need to know in the industry, they know them.”

While the company isn’t disclosing the valuation for its latest funding round, Higueros says they are comfortable where they came in at.

“We got a pretty good bump from our Series A, and we’re comfortable with that,” he said. “There has been a lot of what’s happening in valuation the past year or two. It’s been really frothy. But if you go into a valuation that’s out of control, then you put yourself at a disadvantage because you have to climb into that.”

“We had a really good year last year. We shipped a lot of robots, and we were even profitable. So we feel good about where we are at.”

Robot U: Bear Robotics Enrolls at UNLV To Give Hospitality Students Hands-On Experience

Suppose you’re an aspiring college student looking to enter the hospitality industry and want an education to get set on the right path. In that case, the Hospitality College at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas has to rank near the top of the list.

And in 2022, a big part of preparing for that future has to be showing prospective hospitality students how new technology like automation will change the industry in the coming years. That’s why this week’s news that the college has begun working with Bear Robotics to give students at the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality experience working with robotics is no big surprise.

According to Bear’s Instagram account, the company sent two Servi robots to UNLV, where students will get experience deploying robotics within various hospitality and casino resort scenarios.

From the post:

We are proud to announce that we are partnering with @unlv to provide the next generation of gaming and hospitality professionals with hands-on experience in curating robotic automation programs! We’ve launched 2 Servi robots to run a variety of casino resort simulations and we are so excited to see creative approaches to operational challenges.

As I wrote yesterday, one of the fastest-growing job categories in the service-industry sector will be that of robotics management. In fact, I expect many in the service industry will embrace learning new skills to help them better understand automation technology as it changes their industry. And while I expect there to be growing tension between labor and management in industries where robotics will no doubt displace some workers, it’s important that both sides – management and employee – have a better understanding of how robotics will integrate into different roles within the hospitality industry.

For Bear, this announcement comes just weeks after the company showed up in Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. While Bear hasn’t struck any deals with one of the big casinos, I have to wonder if this partnership could bring it closer to landing in a casino down the street from UNLV.

The Media Was Fascinated with a TikTok Video of a Robot at Denny’s. Here’s What it Means.

Maybe it was a slow news week. Perhaps it was the sight of pancakes hitching a ride on a robot at America’s late-night diner. Whatever the reason, it seemed like every news organization wrote the same story about a TikTok video of server-robot showing up to dish out breakfast at a Denny’s.

They all had a variant of the same headline: “Viral Video of Robot at Denny’s Sparks Debate.” From there, the authors sifted through comments made by TikTok viewers, some cheering the idea of faster service and lower tips, others angry about a robot stealing a job.

While the sudden interest in a social media post about a server robot may say as much about the modern media landscape as it does about the use of robotics at restaurants, the reality is Denny’s deploying robots is kind of a big deal. After all, as America’s most famous 24-hour diner, Denny’s holds a special place in our collective consciousness, a place where almost anyone can get a cheap meal as well as apply for – and often get – a job.

And it’s these two things that Denny’s represents – a place with affordable food and an employer of everyday Americans – that seemed to be in tension with one another when looking at both the comments on the video on TikTok as well as the framing by the media.

Media coverage of robotics in food service has been evolving over the past year, with news organizations going from gee-whiz articles about a cool new novelty to increasingly viewing the use of robotics as a direct result of hiring difficulties due to the pandemic. Of course, this new framing isn’t altogether wrong, as hiring has been difficult. Still, the reality is a bit more nuanced and has as much to do with fast-changing restaurant industry business models and changing consumer eating patterns as it does with hiring difficulties.

No matter the reason, the wider arrival of robotics at Denny’s and restaurant chains is raising the profile of these solutions and looks to be sparking a broader conversation about the impact of automation on the experience and the livelihoods of those in the service industry. This increased spotlight will also likely mean a more jaded framing of food robotics by the media, much like we’ve seen when it comes to their coverage of social media and privacy. While this isn’t necessarily a wrong reaction – it’s the media’s job to be skeptical – a pendulum swing is something the industry should be prepared for.

For the average consumer, the use of robots remains a curiosity. There hasn’t been – at least not yet – a rise of an organized Luddite anti-automation reaction to food robotics. However, the passion in some of the comments on TikTok could be the canary in the coalmine signaling one may be on the way.

As for companies like Bear Robotics – the provider of Denny’s server robot – business just continues to grow. I checked in with Bear Robotics COO Juan Higueros on how the Denny’s rollout is going.

“They have moved fairly quickly,” he said.

According to Higueros, it’s the operators on the front lines who are looking for answers. “What’s interesting is that this is a bottom-up movement by franchise owners that are really pulling for our solution.”

You can watch the TikTok video that sparked the conversation last week below.

Ten Chili’s Restaurants Are Now Using a Server Robot Named Rita

Want your baby back ribs brought to your table via robot?

You may be in luck as Rita the robot, a version of the Bear Robotics Servi server robot platform, has now been deployed in 10 Chili’s restaurants across the US.

The news, shared via a social media post on Linkedin, marks the latest in a string of deployments for the Bear Robotics robot over the past year. The northern California-based company has seen wins across the US in 2021, from Florida’s Sergio’s to the Country Biscuit in North Carolina to Sangam Chettinad Indian Cuisine Restaurant in Austin.

But with over 1600 locations, Chili’s is the biggest win yet for Bear Robotics, and one which looks like it’s growing quickly. Bear announced they deployed Rita to a fifth Chili’s just a week ago, and since then, new locations have been added almost daily.

The Chili’s server-bot deployment is also likely one that could signal a bigger turn towards robotics in fast-casual restaurants. Other chains are no doubt watching the rollout of Rita closely and could be planning to trial their own front-of-house bots as many continue to struggle with hiring.

Bear Robotics, founded by ex-Googler and restauranteur John Ha, has come a long way since Ha started trialing his first robot, Penny, in his own restaurant, the Kang Nam Tofu House in Milpitas, CA. A couple of years later, Bear debuted its second-generation robot Servi, and the company’s been serving up new deployments ever since.

“[Servers] are tired, they get a low salary, usually no health insurance, but they’re working really hard,” Ha told The Spoon in 2018.

In the same interview, Ha also told The Spoon he wanted to create the “Google of the restaurant field.”. With Bear’s relationship with one of the country’s biggest restaurant chains, he may just be inching closer to that vision.

Food Tech Show Live: AB InBev Enters Alt-Protein Game

The usual Spoon gang got together this week to talk food tech with special guest Riana Lynn, longtime food tech entrepreneur and CEO of Journey Foods.

This stories we discuss on this week’s show include:

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also just click play below:

Bear Robotics Now Serving Houston Rockets Fans at Toyota Center

NBA fans heading to Toyota Center to see the Houston Rockets now have the option of getting drinks and snacks served by a robot. Bear Robotics announced on Linkedin yesterday that it has partnered with Levy Restaurants and the Houston Rockets to use its Servi bot at games.

The Houston Rockets posted a promotional video to its official YouTube channel, showing the Servi robot in action along with a caption saying this was the “first-ever robot-assisted food and beverage service at a stadium or arena.”

Rockets Launch First-Ever Robot-Assisted Arena Food And Beverage Service

No further details were posted either by Bear Robotics or the Houston Rockets, so we don’t know where in the stadium the robot is serving or how a person can get the robot service. UPDATE: a Levy Restaurants rep emailed us the following:

During the Rockets remaining games of the 2020-21 season, hospitality team members at Toyota Center will be assisted by an autonomous food service robot. This pilot program will start in Toyota Center’s premium all-inclusive Suite Club to allow team members to focus on providing industry-leading service to fans while the robot performs more routine and physically demanding tasks.

The robot will circulate dining spaces inside the premium space while carrying pre-packaged food and beverage items for guests to pick from. This pilot program will allow Toyota Center staff to learn more about the robot and how it could be potentially utilized in more areas next season.

While this may be the first robot server at a stadium, it is not the first time stadiums — or Levy Restaurants — have employed food-related robots. Both Dodger Stadium and Diamondback’s Chase Field used Miso Robotics’ Flippy robot to fry up chicken tenders and tater tots. And Centerplate Pizza at Safeco Park used Picnic’s pizza assembling robot.

Prior to the pandemic, stadiums were actually a great place to employ automation. Stadiums are packed with lots of people who want good (not necessarily artisanal) food quickly. Robots are able to crank out a steady stream of food made consistently, without taking a break. And as vaccines roll out and stadiums cautiously re-open, robots have another benefit — contactless delivery. Removing a human server eliminates another point of human-to-human transmission, which some wary fans might find more comforting when venturing back out into the world.

If you’re a Rockets fan going to the game, see if you can spot the robot and take a picture for us! If you’re just a fan of food robotics, then you should definitely attend our ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18. It’s a full day devoted to discussing the most cutting-edge innovation in the robotics space. Get your ticket today!

The Food Tech Show: Amazon Intros Palm-Pay, Bear’s New Servi Robot

This week the Spoon team got together to talk about yet another potentially controverisal bit of palm reading tech from Amazon and other news from around the food tech world, including:

As always, you can get the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download the episode directly to your device or just click play below.

Bear Robotics and SoftBank Debut New Servi Restaurant Robot

Good-bye, Penny. Hello Servi.

Bear Robotics and SoftBank announced their new food service robot, dubbed Servi, at an event in Tokyo today. The new robot is actually a redesigned version of Bear’s Penny, an autonomous server robot that shuttles food and empty dishware between the front and back of house of a restaurant.

SoftBank is actually an investor in Bear Robotics, and led Bear’s $32 million Series A round that closed at the beginning of the year. The two companies have been working closely on Servi, and will focus initially on the Japanese market, where Bear has already lined up Denny’s as a customer.

Servi is coming to market at a time of heightened interest in automation in the restaurant industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased scrutiny over the amount and types of human-to-human interactions that happen when dining out. Robots like Servi can also work long hours without a break, won’t call in sick and don’t have to worry about awkward exchanges with customers over wearing their masks (e.g., taking a mask off to eat, putting it back on when ordering).

But Bear is not alone in the robot server space. With players like PuduTech and Keenon Robotics, server robots could quickly become a commodity, with restaurants just opting for the lowest cost option.

John Ha, Founder and CEO of Bear Robotics, told me by phone last week that Bear’s robots are different from the competition because of their full autonomous driving (no need for special tags to be placed on ceilings) and easier set up.

Ha was in South Korea at the time because Bear has an office in Seoul and that is where the company will be manufacturing Servi. This scaled up production, Ha said, will be a way Bear can fend off newer startups looking to break into the robot space. “People without mass production won’t be close anytime soon, because mass production is not a joke,” Ha said.

South Korea will also be among the first markets for Bear, with Ha saying that they have received a lot of inbound interest from restaurants there. In South Korea, Bear will go up against Woowa Brothers, which teamed up with LG and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) to develop robot waiters as well.

As noted, the pandemic is accelerating the interest and adoption of food robots. So expect to be saying hello to a lot more robots like Servi in your not-too-distant dining future.