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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Kiwibot

Kiwibot will Pick up and Deliver Pizza from Piestro’s Robot Vending Machine

Human-free, contactless delivery is going next-level, thanks to a new partnership announced today between Piestro and Kiwibot.

In a word, this new deal is all about robots. Piestro makes a robot-powered pizza making vending machine , and Kiwibot makes little rover-style food delivery robots. As Piestros come to market, they will feature an integrated mechanism that allows Kiwibots to pluck those pizzas from the machine and cart them directly to your door.

The program isn’t live yet, and there isn’t a specific timetable for when it will happen. Piestro just successfully closed one equity crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $1 million, and is launching a new one with the hopes of raising $5 million more.

But when Piestros do come to market, those living in a Piestro/Kiwibot market will be able to order a pizza from the comfort of your couch through an app, and the Kiwibot will retrieve it and bring it to you. The exact process/app through which you order depends on if the Piestro is one owned and operated by the company, or if it is one that’s branded and licensed by a third-party.

Given the global pandemic, the desire for contactless food delivery is accelerating technologies that power both robotic vending machines and robot delivery services. Not only can robots work around the clock, they also remove a vector of human-to-human transmission. The Piestro/Kiwibot deal takes this concept even further by having a robot interact with the machine so there is no human in the transaction.

The ability to get items from vending machines was a feature that Kiwibot added last year, though being able to hold a boxed 12-inch pizza requires more space than picking up a Snickers bar. I spoke with Massimo de Marco, Piestro CEO by phone this week, who explained that Piestro is working with Kiwibot on a new version of its robot that can carry pizzas.

As noted, there wasn’t any indication of when or where Piestros will be hitting the streets. And even though Piestro and Kiwibot are the first to announce such a daisy chain of robot delivery, you can bet that similar deals will soon follow.

Updated: Kiwibot Partners with Sodexo to Roll Out Delivery Robots at the University of Denver

UPDATE: Some details of this story changed after we published this story:

  • The service is now launching in October. 
  • The delivery fee will start at $2.50, or it will be free with a monthly subscription.
  • Delivery will be available from a total of three restaurants.

Original post follows:

Kiwibot announced today that it has partnered with foodservice company Sodexo to bring robot food delivery to students, faculty and staff at the University of Denver.

Starting today, a fleet of 15 Kiwibots will be available to deliver food from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8 a.m and 6 p.m., with deliveries costing a flat $2.50 per order. Delivery will start with one campus restaurant before expanding to four more food options by mid-October. Kiwibot is also working with the city of Denver to enable off-campus deliveries at some point in October, as well.

There are a few things worth noting about this deal. First, this is Kiwi’s second bite at the apple when it comes to college delivery. Last year, the company delivered to UC Berkeley and had big plans to expand to a number of different schools across the U.S. Those plans never came to fruition, however and were abandoned. One reason that growth might not have happened last year was that Kiwibot was going through student groups, and not partnering with a school’s administration.

This time around, Kiwibot has partnered with Sodexo, a huge company that provides foodservice to colleges across the U.S. This partnership brings with it more legitimacy for Kiwibot, and also provides an entrée, so to speak, with college administrations and restaurants at potential campuses.

That Kiwibot has partnered with Sodexo is in itself interesting because Sodexo has an existing partnership with Kiwi rival, Starship, for robot deliveries on various colleges like George Mason University. The difference, however, is that Starship’s program requires users to download the Starship app. Kiwibot’s solution is more of a B2B play, and will integrate with a food ordering app from Sodexo. So it could provide Kiwibot with direct access to a greater number of Sodexo-run properties, should the partnership grow.

Kiwibot have been on a bit of a, err, roll lately. In July the company launched a restaurant delivery program in the city of San Jose, CA. Kiwibot is also in the middle of an equity crowdfunding campaign, which aims to raise $1 million.

Kiwibot Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign for its Deliver Robot Service

Kiwibot, which makes rover delivery robots, officially announced its equity crowdfunding campaign today, with the goal of raising a little more than $1 million via Wefunder.

As of this writing, the company had raised more than $150,000 of that goal (the company raised $148,000 before officially launching). Those interested, can invest a minimum of $100 in the company. (I’m not a financial advisor, all investments have associated risks, caveat emptor, and all that.)

Kiwibot’s financing move comes just weeks after the company rolled out its delivery robots on the streets of San Jose, CA. The company partnered with the City of San Jose, integrating with its municipal software systems to help better manage the fleet of robots and alleviate any hiccups that might occur (like a bot getting stuck on a street corner or something).

Indeed, Kiwibot lists regulatory hurdles as a risk for potential investors, saying:

Due to the actions of some of our competitors, delivery bots have proved controversial in some regulatory environments with some cities, like San Francisco, putting out laws that make it difficult for us to deploy. If this became widespread we would have trouble going to market.

As part of its filings on the WeFunder site, Kiwibot also published its finanials. The company says it generated more than $279,302 in 2019, with losses of -$2,621,693 during that year. Kiwibot says it has $232,562 in cash. According to Crunchbase, Kiwibot has previously raised $3.5 million in funding.

Equity crowdfunding has become a popular option for robotics companies. Miso Robotics, Small Robot and Piestro are all robotics companies that have run equity crowdfunding campaigns this year (both Small Robot and Piestro have met their goals).

Kiwibot’s timing with equity crowdfunding could be fortuitous. Delivery robots like Kiwi’s could be playing more of starring role in how people get their meals as restaurants and consumers look to reduce human-to-human contact. Robots don’t get sick and don’t cough all over your food.

The question now is whether Kiwi’s funding case is compelling enough for the crowd to deliver.

Kiwi Unveils New Name and a New Robot (That Can Get Food From Vending Machines!)

Words matter. That’s a lesson I hope robot delivery startup learned earlier this week when it sent out an email saying “We want to let you know that we will be ending the Kiwibot delivery service, effective December 15, 2019.“

We weren’t sure exactly what that meant, and after a full day of confusion and multiple explanatory emails from the company, it turns out it wasn’t the END end for Kiwi. It was just stopping service for the winter. (Sidenote: Don’t skimp on a copywriter.)

The company then said it would be announcing its reinvention yesterday, which it did towards the close of business with a corporate blog post. Kiwi had already shared some details from this “reinvention” earlier in the week: the company has changed its name to “Kiwibot,” there’s a new, more rugged robot on the way (see video below), and something called Kiwi Express promises to be the “First end to end robotic Food delivery service.”

Yesterday’s blog post added a few details:

In 2020, we will roll out Kiwibot Cloud Pro. A new generation is coming. Refined hardware design, new operations features, and superior human interactions will transform the logistics landscape and yield better service.

We combine sensors of a custom made stereo camera to get more information about the environment. Our Kiwibots will sense the world more accurately and move more precisely. Our Kiwibots are now resilient to dynamic light conditions on different sidewalks.

In addition to the new technology, this new Kiwibot is also more rugged, which will make it less likely to get stuck (and need a human’s help).

On Kiwibot’s website, the company says that its robots can now interact with vending machines. At first blush, this might seem like overkill to have a robot pick you up a Snickers bar from the lobby vending machine because you are too lazy to walk down there. But vending machines are changing and turning into something more akin to small restaurants. Companies like Yo-Kai Express serve hot ramen from vending machines, and Cafe X is re-classifying its coffee robot as a vending machine. So being early to integrate its robot with those types of systems now makes a lot of sense for Kiwi.

It’s nice to know that Kiwi isn’t shutting down. While there are still a lot of issues to work out, I’m still a big believer in robot delivery. More players in the space means more competition and more innovation.

Now Kiwi just needs fewer wording mistakes.