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Aniai , a startup that has built a burger - grill automaton , Alpha Grill , said today it has raised $ 12 million , land its entire raise to $ 15 million . The money will go toward launch its first manufacturing facility , Factory One , in South Korea . The firm will also be deploying a cloud - based AI software platform for the automaton called Alpha Cloud .
Robot adoption in the restaurant business is becoming popular as itcan avail eating house address their in high spirits pain stage like project shortages , and uprise wage issues . Robotics enable restaurant to save 30 % to 70 % of Labor Department cost , and restaurants could replace more than 80 % of restaurant positions with golem , grant toa research report .
“ Burger range of mountains hire six to eight kitchen staff per shimmy to grill Burger , ” Aniai CEO Gunpil Hwang said . “ Alpha Grill enable restaurants to prosecute only one stave member to grill burgers . ”
The New York - headquartered startup articulate it will launch Factory One this year to meet the mature marketplace demand for Alpha Grill , with around 500 pre - orders for delivery starting in the first quarter of 2024 . Its manufacture facility will be able to produce more than 1,000 robots annually . The company ’s bivalent - sided Alpha Grill , launch in 2022 , can cook 200 patty per hour , or eight cake simultaneously ( after human staff places them on a grill ) .
The swarm - based AI software and real - time vision sensing element will enable Alpha Grill to comprehend the environment , name the colour of cake on a grillwork and monitor the cake ’ temperature , shape and quality . If the exploiter ’s patty does not meet its cooking formula , stipulation and prerequisite , Alpha Grill promptly apprize the cooking staff to guarantee quality mastery .
The startup is currently developing its second product , Alpha Kitchen , Hwang told TechCrunch . With an expected 2025 launch , Alpha Kitchen will be capable to automate the entire Warren Earl Burger - make unconscious process , from cooking patty and toasting buns to dispensing vegetables and other fixings .
Aniai currently serve seven customer , including fast - food burger chains in South Korea , CJ Freshway , BAS Burger and DownTowner . It has also been test Alpha Grill with burger mountain range in the U.S. since last year . The outfit says it will also use the latest capitalspeed up its expansion in the U.S. and South Korea .
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Aniai is part ofa growing kitchen automation industry . Other party in this space includeMiso Robotics , which is behind Flippy , a beefburger - flip robot ; Botinkit , a cooking robot Godhead in China ; andChef Roboticsin San Francisco .
InterVest led the latest funding along with new investor SV Investment , UK ’s Ignite Innovation and a previous backer , Capstone Partners .
Founded in 2020 , the startup had 30 employees as of December 2023 .
https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/flippy-the-hamburger-cooking-robogets-a-more-capable-successor/
