Serve Robotics Buys Vebu, Plans LA & Dallas Expansion
Chef Robotics expands to ghost kitchens, Brightpick raises $12M
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Serve Drops Q3, Buys Vebu
Publicly listed delivery bot maker Serve Robotics put out its Q3 2024 financial results, with revenue coming in at a cool $220,000 and its net loss for the quarter nearing $8 million. Due to its capital raise over the summer, Serve still has a healthy $50.9 million in cash on hand.
Operationally, the company expanded its daily active robot supply to 59, from 48 the previous quarter, while supply hours rose from 385 to 465. Serve also formally announced it would expand to Dallas by the end of Q2 2025, something it had teased earlier as part of its partnership with Wing. Serve is expanding its footprint in LA as well, adding robots to Downtown, Sawtelle and Westwood.
Serve is also feeling acquisitive, as it just purchased Vebu, maker of the Autocado, Chipotle’s avocado smashing robot. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Serve has a longstanding relationship with its new subsidiary, as the automation-focused venture studio originally invested in Serve Robotics back in 2021, when Vebu went by the name Wavemaker Labs.
Chef Robotics Eyes Ghost Kitchens
Chef Robotics made a splash earlier this year, raising $15 million to bring Robotics-as-a-Service to meal prep facilities and other large-scale industrial kitchens. Now the company is looking to get into smaller facilities like ghost kitchens. “We’re ready for medium-volume, high-mix environments,” said Chef Robotics Founder Rajat Bhageria. “Ghost kitchens have a lot of different meals but they’re smaller than the food factories.” Currently, the company has deployed in six cities, making 30 million servings, using more than 1,700 ingredients.
Brightpick Raises $12 Million
Automated mobile robot startup Brightpick just grabbed something pretty valuable: $12 million in new debt and equity funding. The Erlanger, Kentucky based startup has now raised $47 million in total funding, and predicts the new financing will help it keep pushing its robotics and AI deployments across the United States.
In Other News
Sweetgreen’s Q3 falls short. Anova launches Precision Oven 2.0. What’s next for Walmart’s checkout tech?