How many startup companies reach their goals and find the best investors for their business? Not many! While plenty of technology companies have made it big, plenty more have failed. Will new tech company Zume Pizza be a massive hit or utter failure? Well, it’s too early to tell, but one thing’s for sure: investors like the company’s odds!
Robots in the Kitchen?
It might sound like something out of a science-fiction film, but it’s happening! Zume Pizza uses robots to produce the pizzas they sell. While these robots have an upfront cost of $35,000, they quickly make the company’s investment back by both producing pizzas faster and saving Zume the cost of human employment. After all, robots don’t need benefits, breaks, or anything like that!
In the end, those savings are passed on to the consumers. For example, a 14-inch pizza from Domino’s costs $15.99; however, the same from Zume only costs $9.99!
One Futuristic Process
Zume’s entire process is quite fascinating and combines robots, AI, and, of course, pizza. First, robots prepare the pizzas in a commissary kitchen. There, they sauce the pizza, add the cheese, and do everything short of cooking them. Then, humans load the pizzas onto a mobile, AI-driven kitchen truck that includes a robot in the back and 56 ovens. By using predictive AI and past orders, Zume predicts the most likely order combos for a particular area.
After loading, the truck drives itself to a central location. Once a customer places an order, the robot in the vehicle places the pizza in an oven to cook. Delivery drivers then pick up the pizza from the truck and deliver them to customers. By parking the pizza van in a central location and having delivery drivers stay in the busy area instead of driving back to the store, Zume cuts down significantly on wait times. They can also employ freelance, local delivery people, like Grubhub, UberEATS, and other similar services. Finally, Zume also saves money by not having to open a store in a busy location. They can set up the commissary kitchen away from cities, where rent is cheaper, then load up multiple vans with hundreds of pre-made pizzas and send them to busy locations.
Investing in Zume Pizza
Clearly, this is a model that can be adapted to many cities across the country. However, for now, Zume Pizza only operates in the Bay Area of California; specifically, the cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Campbell, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View. Soon, they hope to start delivering in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. Of course, given the right investment, Zume may expand faster than expected!
Of course, Zume wouldn’t exist without some already confident backers. Large investment firm Softbank reportedly invested a whopping $375 million into the company! The firm invested as part of its Vision Fund, which focuses on emerging, technology-driven companies. With a company like Softbank investing in Zume Pizza, expect that other large investors likely won’t be far behind. Especially those that love the food and beverage business.
Without a doubt, Zume Pizza is a company to keep an eye on.
Sources: Eater, TradingBlvd.