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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

robot boba tea

Yo-Kai to Debut Boba Making Robot at CES 2024

In less than two weeks, Yo-Kai Express, a company that’s become synonymous with hot ramen-making robots, will show it has a sweet side with the debut of a boba-making robot at CES in Las Vegas.

Yo-Kai CEO Andy Lin told The Spoon that the company’s new robotic boba maker will be the first boba-bot that incorporates a cooking pot inside the appliance, enabling it to cook boba tapioca pearls as well as other toppings. According to Lin, the machine’s built-in cooking capability will allow it to be more than just a boba-maker, enabling it to create a variety of different hot and cold beverages and meals ranging from instant oatmeal to protein shakes to soups and coffees.

The first machine will be shipped to Netflix’s headquarters in Los Gatos, California. After that, Lin says that distribution will be a phased release with around ten boba-bots shipped to other corporate headquarters in the Bay Area. Another shipment in March will put the Yo-Kai boba machine at college campuses and other locations, and starting in June, the Yo-Kai boba-bot will be widely available to individual operators who want to operate a Yo-Kai.

And it’s with this wider availability that Yo-Kai will begin a new expansion approach that will extend beyond its current operating model. Lin says that in 2024, the company plans to phase its expansion model into one utilizing a partner model where individual operators will pay an initial startup fee to Yo-Kai, and from there, they will be able to take ownership of the boba and begin operating it. Lin says that the model, which is “franchise-like”, will offer new operators a choice of up to 1,500 different locations that Yo-Kai has helped find through a new strategic partnership with a large real estate management company.

“Usually, if a partner wants to open a boba store, they need to find a location by themselves,” said Lin. “But we don’t need them to find a location; we can actually provide a location to them. So it will be a one-stop-shop: Go to the website, select the region you want to have the machine, and we will work together with them.”

While the Yo-Kai boba-bot certainly isn’t the first automated boba-making machine, no other company has had much success in expanding beyond initial pilots and trials. Bobacino, which debuted in 2020, saw its CEO depart last month, and it’s not clear if the company is still operational. Cloutea, which debuted its boba robot at CES 2023, opened a store in Las Vegas this past April but has not expanded beyond a single location.

The new Yo-Kai boba robot will debut at CES, which starts on January 9th and runs through January 12th. The new boba bot will be featured in the food tech area on the show floor in the Venetian Expo Hall at CES.

Stay tuned to The Spoon for more food tech coverage at CES over the next two weeks.

Meet Bobacino, the Boba Tea Making Robot

Let’s just get this out of the way: “robo-boba” is fun (if slightly difficult) to say out loud. But it’s a phrase you could be saying it a lot more if Bobacino has its way. Today the company took the wraps off its eponymous boba tea-making robot kiosk and launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to help bring it to market.

Bobacino is currently in the prototype stage, and uses an articulating arm to mix one recipe of tea, sweetened milk, syrup and tapioca balls over ice to make its boba tea. Future versions of the machine will be able to create multiple recipes.

That’s where the equity crowdfunding campaign comes. Bobacino is looking to raise $3 million from everyday investors starting in January of 2021. Money raised will help the Santa Monica, CA-based company further develop its robo-boba and bring it to market in the second half of 2021.

Bobacino is backed by Wavemaker Partners and Embark Ventures. Sharp-eyed Spoon readers will recognize Wavemaker from its backing of Piestro, which makes a standalone robotic pizza vending machine. (For more on the future of vending machines, check out The Great Vending Reinvention: The Spoon’s Smart Vending Machine Market Report.)

Like Piestro, Bobacino has a two-pronged business model that involves both owning and operating its own machines as well as co-branding with existing boba tea brands.

In addition to the assist from Wavemaker, Bobacino has its own pedigree in automated drink vending. Bobacino Founder and CEO, Darian Ahler, previously co-founded and was head of operations at Truebird, the NYC-based robotic coffee kiosk company.

The fact that Bobacino exists shows how the robotic vending space is maturing and already becoming thinly sliced. Unlike previous robot beverage companies like Cafe X and Briggo (which was acquired by Costa Coffee) that made a wide variety of coffee and tea drinks, Bobacino is only making boba tea drinks. Add Blendid’s robot smoothie maker to the mix and it’s pretty easy to envision hospital lobbies, airports (you know, after the pandemic), and even grocery stores installing a variety of these machines to offer a bevvy of different beverages (which is also fun to say out loud).