Robots may take our jerbs, but they’ll make us some delicious margherita pizza while they’re at it.
Bloomberg reports that Softbank is in talks to invest $500m to $750m in Zume, the startup that makes and delivers pizza with robots.
‘Excuse me, there’s a bolt in my pizza.’ — future people
Founded in 2015 to push the boundaries of pizza making, Zume uses robotics and AI to press dough, spread sauce, and scoop pizza in and out of ovens at warp speed compared to us mere mortals.
This new round is a ton of cheddar compared to the cheesy $48m the pizza tech startup has raised thus far.
But, Zume also owns a patent for delivery trucks loaded with robots that are capable of preparing grub while en route to customers — and we’re guessing that piqued Softbank’s interest.
Control the food delivery, control the pizza pipeline
This investment marks yet another move from Softbank’s Vision Fund to insert itself into the food-delivery biz.
Back in 2016, Softbank Robotics signed on with Pizza Hut Asia to distribute their humanoid robots into stores, and more recently they led a $535m funding round into meal-delivery app DoorDash.
Zume currently operates 3 trucks from their Mountain View, CA, HQ, but plans to partner with companies like UberEats in the future — which Softbank also has a stake in.