Chef Robotics Secures $43.1 Million in Series A Funding to Revolutionize Food Industry with AI-Powered Robotic Arms

Chef Robotics raises $20.6 million to continue building AI robot arms

As the food service industry continues to struggle with labor shortages, a Silicon Valley startup has put together artificially-intelligent robots that are ready to clock in. Chef Robotics has raised $20.6 million in a Series A funding round led by Avataar Ventures, the company told CNBC. The round includes an additional $22.5 million in equipment financing debt to keep building out the startup's robotic meal assembly systems. CEO Rajat Bhageria and his team founded the company in 2019 with the goal of building robots that can help make up for a lack of human workers in food processing plants, which often see high turnover due to the nature of the job, forcing a reliance on temporary workers. "There's rooms of hundreds of hundreds of people, they're just scooping food for eight hours a day in a 34-degree Fahrenheit room," said Bhageria, whose startup is based in San Francisco. "It's a lot more manual than even we had expected." The robotic chefs are long arms with multiple joints that are wrapped in a protective covering. The arms hang from metal racks that sit next to food-assembly lines. This allows the arms to scoop up different ingredients and spread them in prepackaged meal containers similar to how humans workers might. The robots are particularly suited for joining assembly lines where humans have to do repetitive motions.

Chef Robotics Raises $43M in Series A for Robotic Food Assembly

With this funding, Chef's total capital reaches $65.6 million, paving the way for its UK market entry this year. Chef Robotics, a San Francisco-based automation company, has raised $43.1 million in a Series A funding round. This round consists of $20.6 million in equity and $22.5 million in equipment financing debt, as announced by the company on Monday. With this, Chef, currently serving the US and Canada, aims to expand its presence in the UK market this year. Avataar Ventures led the equity round, with participation from Construct Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Promus Ventures, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures, HCVC, MaC Venture Capital, Red and Blue Ventures, Tau Partners, Alumni Ventures, Siddhi Capital, and BOLD Capital Partners. This funding brings Chef's total capital raised to around $65.6 million ($38.8 million in equity and $26.75 million in debt). This funding will accelerate production deployments of the company's AI-enabled robotic systems for meal assembly. "Robotics is having a moment right now. The innovations in AI have unlocked the potential of embodied AI for robotics. We believe we're in the pole position to scale given all the real-world production training data we already have," said Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics. The equipment financing debt will cover the costs of robotic systems for robotics-as-a-service (RaaS), allowing customers to avoid upfront capital expenditures. The company plans to use the funds to scale its go-to-market team and invest in sales and marketing. Chef has produced over 44 million meals through deployments at brands like Amy's Kitchen and Sunbasket. The company relies on real-world production data to train its physical AI model, ChefOS, which is critical for improving system performance. It also has AI-enabled robots deployed all over North America, which have completed tens of thousands of hours of active production and manipulated almost 2,000 ingredients in production. Mohan Kumar, founder and managing partner at Avataar Ventures, noted, "AI in the physical world is happening right now with robotics. Food is one of the largest markets in the world. Industrial AI is already winning, and food packaging automation is quietly transforming how we get our meals." Bhageria also expressed that in the future, the company aims to expand its fleet of intelligent robots, accelerate customer deployments across both its existing and new customers, advance ChefOS, grow its go-to-market team, and expand internationally.

Chef Robotics Raises USD 43.1 Mn to Expand AI-Powered Robotic Food Automation

You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Chef Robotics, an AI-powered robotic systems provider for meal assembly, has secured USD 43.1 million in Series A funding. The round includes USD 20.6 million in equity, led by Avataar Ventures, with participation from Construct Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Promus Ventures, and others. Additionally, USD 22.5 million in equipment financing debt was raised, allowing Chef to expand its Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) model without customers bearing upfront costs. The funds will be utilised to scale production deployments, enhancing Chef's AI-driven automation capabilities. The company attributes its rapid growth to its data-driven AI engine, which refines its robotic systems through real-world meal assembly. With over 44 million servings produced at brands like Amy's Kitchen and Sunbasket, Chef Robotics continues to optimise efficiency in the food industry. "Robotics is really having a moment right now. The innovations in AI have unlocked the potential of Embodied AI for robotics. We believe we're in the pole position to scale, given all the real-world production training data we already have," said Rajat Bhageria, Founder and CEO of Chef Robotics. Founded in 2019 by Bhageria, Chef Robotics specialises in AI-powered robotic solutions tailored for meal assembly. The company's offerings help food brands automate production with precision, reducing reliance on manual labor while increasing output and consistency. Its AI models continuously improve by analysing data from each meal assembled. With this latest funding, Chef Robotics has raised a total of USD 65.6 million, including USD 26.75 million in equipment financing from Silicon Valley Bank. Looking ahead, the company aims to expand its AI-driven robotics platform, further scale deployments, and enhance its position as a leader in automated meal assembly solutions.