In a White Castle just southeast of Chicago, the 100-year-old purveyor of fast food has played host for the past year to ...
Problem
The restaurant industry operates with notoriously low margins
Restaurants operate with razor-thin margins, which have become even slimmer since the pandemic. Rising costs for real estate, food, and labor, combined with customer expectations of low, unchanging prices, create an difficult operating structure.
Labor in particular has become a major pain point for restaurant operators. Many are struggling to find workers due to a shrinking labor pool and increasing demand across the board.
Solution
The kitchen of the future
Our cloud-connected AI platform enables our autonomous kitchen assistants to perform tasks such as frying and filling alongside checks in any commercial kitchen. With 2 patents granted and 10 others pending for our proprietary machine learning and robotics control software, we're making more just robots--we're making artificial intelligence for the kitchen of the future.
Miso Robotics allows restaurants to reliably decrease labor costs and increase profit margins without sacrificing food quality or efficiency.
Product
The AI-powered robotic restaurant platform
Meet Flippy, a versatile, autonomous robotic kitchen assistant. Designed to meet quick service restaurants' every need, Flippy can work the grill or the fryer, cook perfectly and consistently every time, and automatically clean. Plus, it’s OSHA safety compliant. Recently we launched the all-new Flippy 2. It takes the original Flippy to a whole new level. It utilizes automatic dispensers, AutoBins & speciality holding baskets plus separated hot food holding, all in a much smaller footprint with upgrades on nearly every system.
We’ve also introduced our second product, and first standalone SaaS product, CookRight. CookRight is the first AI-powered cooking platform able to automatically identify and track products and tasks on a grill.
Traction
Extensive media coverage & contracts that will place Flippy across the globe
Miso Robotics has been featured in dozens of prominent media outlets, including Forbes, TechCrunch, and the Wall Street Journal. In total, there have been more than 12B organic media impressions of Flippy.
Flippy is currently operating the fryer at Caliburger in Ft Myers, FL. In addition to being an investor, they have also ordered Flippy for each of their global locations.
Customers
Currently deployed in White Castle, CaliBurger, and Major League Baseball stadiums
We partnered with White Castle to pilot Flippy in one of their restaurants. Following a successful pilot, we announced a beta rollout with White Castle to deploy Flippy to up to 10 additional locations. In August 2021 we launched Flippy 2 at White Castle, which will be the version deployed in the beta rollout.
We are poised to deploy Flippy to each of CaliBurger’s global locations. Additionally, Flippy has previously operated at Major League Baseball stadiums, including Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and Chase Field in Phoenix.
Business model
Subscription model with no up-front cost
Miso operates on a Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, with the base configuration averaging $3,000 per month. This monthly fee includes software updates, as well as technical support, and routine maintenance. When considering the labor savings and increased throughput recognized by restaurants, this serves as a very accessible entry point for our customers.
Market
A $6.9B opportunity
With high annual labor costs and a turnover rate of 150% in the quick service restaurant space, Flippy is well-positioned to address the need for a smart solution that will help businesses lower operating costs. There are more than 286K QSR locations in the US alone, representing a $6.9B opportunity for Miso Robotics.
Vision and strategy
Creating artificial intelligence for commercial kitchens
Beyond our new partnership with White Castle, Miso is in communication with nearly every major QSR chain. We'll also continue to expand our presence into other commercial kitchens. Our automated kitchen solutions are targeting some of the toughest pain points in QSR kitchens, and we are continuing to innovate.
Notably, we recently announced a partnership with Lancer Worldwide – a global beverage dispenser manufacturer trusted by the world’s top food and beverage brands – to build an intelligence-backed, automated beverage dispenser that will bring enhanced functionality for a future-focused commercial kitchen.
Through our AI-powered robotic restaurant platform, we make the back of the house a better place to work. Our automated solutions do the hardest and most dangerous work in the kitchen, so people don’t have to. By making mundane tasks faster, more consistent and more reliable, we bring order to the back, increasing the food quality as much as the employee experience.
Funding
$38M+ raised to date from more than 9,500 investors
Founders
Buck Jordan | Co-Founder & President
Buck drives strategic partnerships and corporate development at Miso. As a technologist and early-stage venture investor, he has a track record of building successful businesses at the leading edge of technology in transformative, high growth markets. He has held roles at Wavemaker Partners and Wavemaker Labs, and founded VC firm Canyon Creek Capital.
Rob Anderson | Co-Founder & Head of Mechanical Engineering
Rob leads the hardware development of Miso’s autonomous cooking platform. Rob previously worked at Microsoft where he supported the international development of the Surface manufacturing lines. At SpaceX, Rob helped develop internal tools to understand component lifetime after multiple rocket launches. He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, where he founded an interdisciplinary program to evaluate the next generation of energy storage for vehicles.
Ryan Sinnet | Co-Founder & Chief Research Officer
Ryan leads all research efforts at Miso in support of its robotics and artificial intelligence strategy. He has over a decade of experience developing control software and machine learning algorithms for robotics and industrial applications. As a PhD student, Ryan was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and worked on humanoid robotics at NASA Johnson Space Center. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, and a degree in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
John Miller | Co-Founder & Advisor
John co-founded Miso and currently acts as an advisor to the company. He is Chairman & CEO of Cali Group, which he founded in 2011. Prior to this he was the second employee at Arrowhead (NASDAQ: ARWR) where he was responsible for the formation, growth, and sale of Arrowhead’s electronics business unit.
Disclaimers
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