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Title: How Chef Robotics found success by turning away its original customers
After facing potential doom just a few years ago, Chef Robotics has not only survived but is now thriving. The six-year-old company has secured a $23 million Series A round and inked a $26.75 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank for equipment financing.
The journey to this success was marked by a pivotal moment – saying no to the very customers that had initially sought out Chef Robotics’ services. Founder Rajat Bhageria revealed in an interview that he and his team spent years trying to convince fast-casual restaurants to work with them, but were met with rejection after rejection.
The startup’s original goal was to help these companies by automating the process of preparing meals for each customer order. However, despite their efforts, they failed to secure any deals with these major players in the industry. This realization led Bhageria to have a profound moment of clarity: “I need different customers.”
This decision proved to be a turning point for Chef Robotics. By shifting their focus away from fast-casual restaurants and towards “high mix manufacturing” – a sector that makes thousands of servings, but with a much smaller variety of ingredients – the startup was able to find its perfect market.
In this new segment, Bhageria discovered that the challenges faced by these customers were vastly different than those in the fast-casual space. Rather than trying to assemble individual meals for each customer order, “high mix” manufacturers would typically have hundreds of employees forming an assembly line, where they would repeatedly add their respective ingredients to trays until orders were complete.
Bhageria described this process as a “terrible job,” citing the cold temperatures and repetitive nature of the work. Moreover, these industries suffer from chronic labor shortages due to the undesirable working conditions. Chef Robotics’ solution – flexible-ingredient robots that can be built in partnership with food makers – finally found traction here.
The pivot not only allowed the company to secure funding but also changed its approach to fundraising. According to Bhageria, the process was “weirdly” easy this time around. Avataar Venture Partners, a venture capital firm co-founded by former Norwest VC Mohan Kumar, took a keen interest in the startup’s work and led the Series A round.
As for the company’s future plans, Bhageria revealed that serving fast-casual restaurants remains on his roadmap.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/10/how-chef-robotics-found-success-by-turning-away-its-original-customers/
