Zume

Last updated
Zume, Inc.
Company type Private
IndustryManufacturing, Food technology, Food delivery, Automation, Food packaging
Founded2015;9 years ago (2015)
Founders
  • Alex Garden
  • Julia Collins
DefunctJune 2023;12 months ago (June 2023)
Headquarters Camarillo, California, United States [1]
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Alex Garden
Products Sustainable products, Packaging

Zume, Inc. was an American manufacturing-technology company headquartered in Camarillo, California. [2] Founded in 2015 as an automated pizza parlor, in 2020 the company shifted to food packaging and delivery logistics. In June 2023, the company was shut down. [3]

Contents

History

Zume was founded in 2015 as Zume Pizza [4] by Chairman and CEO Alex Garden [5] and Julia Collins. [6] [7] In 2016, it raised $6 million in Series A investment funding from Jerry Yang [8] and SignalFire, a venture capital firm. [9]

Zume's initial business proposition was the automated production and delivery of pizza, which would largely be made by robots and cooked en route to customers. [10] [9] In September 2016, it delivered its first pizzas. They were cooked in a van equipped with 56 GPS-equipped automated ovens, timed to be ready shortly before arrival at the address, and then sliced by a self-cleaning robot cutter. [6] [7] [11] The pizza preparation process was partly automated by November 2016. [12]

The company secured a patent on cooking during delivery, [8] [13] which included algorithms to predict customer choices, and planned to partner with businesses to provide other robot-prepared meal components, such as salads and desserts. [13] In fall 2017, Zume raised $48 million in Series B funding. [14]

Baking pizzas in a moving vehicle proved to be impractical, and customers complained about quality problems with the robot-made pizzas; the idea was eventually shelved. [15]

Zume, Inc.

By 2018, the company announced that it would move away from pizza and make use of artificial intelligence and kitchen technology to become a platform for automated food trucks and would form a larger umbrella company, Zume, Inc. [16] In April 2018, the company announced that it would begin to license its automation technology. [16] It subsequently also began selling food packaging; it holds patents for sustainable food-delivery boxes. [17] It projected revenues of $250 million and $1 billion in the final quarters of 2020 and 2021, respectively. [15] In November 2018, the company raised $375 million from SoftBank, giving it a valuation of $2.25 billion. [18] It subsequently focused on automated production and packaging for other food companies, [17] [19] and in 2019 it bought Pivot, a company which made plant-based packaging. [20] [21]

The company sought a valuation of $4 billion in 2019 and generated significant public attention. [17] [15] Its packaging could not legally hold food in some jurisdictions, including San Francisco, because it contained PFAS, which are chemicals considered harmful to humans by the EPA. [15] In 2020, the founders of Pivot, which Zume acquired, claimed the company was incorrectly valued at the time they were purchased for $20.5 million, which purportedly included $10 million in stock. [21] By May 2020, the company started manufacturing compostable food packaging. [15] [22] In 2020 it laid off more than 500 employees including its entire robotics and delivery truck departments. [23] In June 2023, the company was shut down. [3]

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References

  1. "Robotics Startup Zume Is Now Selling Masks". Business Insider. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  2. "Zume's pizza robots are now turning waste into compostable packaging". CNBC. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  3. 1 2 McBride, Sarah. "Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  4. "Zume Pizza: Tech start-up that uses robots to make pizza raises nearly $50mn". FDF World.com. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  5. Maze, Jonathan (November 2, 2018). "Robotic pizza-maker Zume raises $375M". Restaurant Business. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  6. 1 2 Kendall, Marissa (September 29, 2016). "Zume Pizza: Made by robots, baked in delivery truck". San Jose Mercury News . Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  7. 1 2 Entis, Laura; Baran, Jonathan (September 29, 2016). "This Robot-Made Pizza Is Baked in the Van on the Way to Your Door". Fortune . Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  8. 1 2 "Pie in the sky: Technology firms may struggle to disrupt the food business". The Economist . November 26, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  9. 1 2 Mannes, John (September 1, 2016). "Robots and on-board ovens deliver on Zume's promise of better pizza". TechCrunch .
  10. Zaleski, Olivia (June 24, 2016). "Inside Silicon Valley's Robot Pizzeria". Bloomberg . Retrieved November 6, 2016.
  11. Savvides, Lexxy (November 4, 2016). "See inside a robot pizza factory". CNET . Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  12. Artisanal pizza — with a robot’s personal touch
  13. 1 2 Elgan, Mike (December 24, 2016). "Software is eating the food world". Computerworld (opinion). Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  14. "A look at 42 women in tech who crushed it in 2017". TechCrunch . December 22, 2017. Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 McBride, Sarah (13 February 2020). "SoftBank's $375 Million Bet on Pizza Went Really Bad Really Fast". Bloomberg . Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  16. 1 2 Heater, Brian (April 25, 2018). "Zume looks to life beyond pizza". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
  17. 1 2 3 "Why a robot pizza startup could be worth $4 billion". Vox. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  18. "Robot pizza maker reportedly takes $375 million investment from SoftBank". CNBC. November 2, 2018. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
  19. Takahashi, Dean (June 13, 2019). "Zume acquires Pivot Packaging to eliminate plastic in fresh food delivery". VentureBeat. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
  20. "Zume buys packaging company, with eyes on plant-based plastic alternative". TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  21. 1 2 Schubarth, Cromwell (2020-04-22). "Zume accused of fraud, non-payment by founders of company it bought". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 2021-07-11.
  22. Hernbroth, Megan (2020-05-18). "Former robotics startup Zume is now selling face masks and appears to have stopped producing the food packaging that it refocused its business on in January". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  23. Rennolds, Nathan. "The $500 million robot pizza startup you never heard of has shut down, report says". Business Insider.

37°23′56″N122°05′02″W / 37.398925°N 122.083925°W / 37.398925; -122.083925