Xrobotics believes that it cracked the code to adopt the Pizza restaurant robotics.
The San Francisco-based robotics company has built a countertop robot called the Xpizza Cube. This is the size of a stackable washing machine, and uses machine learning to apply sauce, cheese and pepperonis to the pizza dough. For three years, the machine leases for $1,300 a month, constitutes up to 100 pizzas per hour and is renovated to operate pies of various sizes and styles, such as Detroit and Chicago Deep Dish.
“This saves almost 70 people, and sometimes 80% of the time for staff,” Xrobotics co-founder and CEO Denis Rodionov told TechCrunch. “It’s just a reproducible task. If you have a pepperoni pizza, you’ll need to place 50 slices of pepperoni one at a time.”
Xrobotics is not the only company that has tried to introduce robotics into the restaurant industry, nor is it the only company that focuses on pizza.
Zume is the most notable pizza robot company. If it is considered a unique category. The company pivoted to focus on sustainable packaging in 2020, raising more than $420 million in venture capital for its robotic pizza truck before closing it completely in 2023.
Rodionoff argues that he hasn’t succeeded because other companies are not trying to completely change the pizza making process.
Rodionov said that because they’re building assistive technology in contrast to replacement technology, they can keep the device small enough to fit existing kitchens, and pizzerias from mommy and pop shops to big chains are priced at a level where they can count as customers.
The company found this the hard way. The company was launched in 2019 and introduced the first version of the technology in 2021. Xrobotics’ first robot was significantly larger, working with over 20 toppings, and ran into the same problems as its competitors.
“We were a real pilot in a restaurant with a huge machine,” Rodionoff said. “We learned a lot from it and found out we needed a very small and compact solution. It was a bit scary. All the numbers, all the emotions, all the gut said you need to do this.
Xrobotics launched its current model in 2023. The company refused to share the number of customers. The company said the robot produces 25,000 pizzas a month, but it’s a number of customers that are difficult to calculate.
The startup also recently attracted a $2.5 million seed round led by Finsight Ventures with participation from SOSV, Mana Ventures and Republic Capital. Rodionov said the company will use capital to produce more units and install more robots for its customers.
Xrobotics is working on the pizza industry for at least now, Rodionov said there are over 73,000 pizza chains in the US alone, considering the vast size of the market. The company will next expand to Mexico and Canada.
“I love pizza, which is also a co-founder,” Rodionoff said. “We probably tested pizza in San Francisco, and we also tested pizza in New York and Chicago,” Rodionoff added that Detroit-style pizza, known for its square and crispy cheese crust, is his favorite.