Pizza delivery service Zume who would cook the pies on their way to your house pleats
Pizza delivery service Zume that would cook the pies on the way to your house folds – after raising $445 MILLION in funding
- Founded in 2015, Zume said it would make pizzas in the back of a van
- In 2018, venture capital firm SoftBank invested $375 million in the company
- The company has now ceased all activities and is selling its assets
A Silicon Valley startup that planned to use robots to make pizzas in the back of vans has filed for bankruptcy despite raising $445 million in funding.
Founded in 2015, Zume sought to disrupt the pizza market by using robotics to cook them on the fly and machine learning to predict which pizzas people would order.
The company quickly caught the attention of investors, most notably SoftBank, which invested $375 million in 2018 and valued the startup at approximately $2.25 billion.
While Zume enjoyed a meteoric rise boosted by nearly half a billion dollars in investment, its demise was protracted. 2020, reported Bloomberg it had stopped making pizzas and cut more than half of its workforce.
Last month, the company filed for bankruptcy and hired a restructuring company to liquidate its assets for creditors a report in The Information. Last month, the activities were completely stopped.
A Silicon Valley startup that planned to use robots to make pizzas in the back of vans has gone bankrupt after raising $445 million in funding
Zume tried using robotics to cook pizzas on the fly and software to predict which pizzas people should order
Founded in 2015, it attracted nearly half a billion dollars in investment and said it eventually planned to use robots to make pizza in the back of a delivery truck
Zume was founded by CEO, Alex Garden, and co-founder, Julia Collins, who had the ambition to make the company the “Tesla of fresh food.”
Founded in Mountain View, California, the company built on the idea that robots could be used to do most of the work involved in making a pizza: laying out the dough, spreading sauce, adding toppings, place uncooked pizzas in the oven, and finally slice.
Initially, the plan was to install those robots in the back of trucks so that hot and fresh pizzas could be delivered to customers minutes after they placed an order.
It would also use software to maximize efficiency.
“We use predictive technology to make really fair bets on what pizzas people are going to order,” CEO and co-founder Julia Collins told The Verge in 2015.
Early in the morning we make a daily inventory of pizzas. We forecast the total volume of pizzas and the types of pizzas we need to meet that day’s demand.”
But after extensive testing of the model, it found that cheese would slide around as the truck drove and baked the pizza, and eventually abandoned the plan. reported Bloomberg.
Zume was founded by CEO, Alex Garden, and co-founder, Julia Collins. The couple is pictured in 2016
After laying off half its workforce in 2020, Garden said it would focus on packaging and efficiencies for other food deliverers rather than itself.
In a message to employees, Garden said improving the global food system required more focus and that the pizzas had served as “inspiration” for high-growth companies.
The Mountain View startup, which first started delivering pizzas in 2016, said it planned to focus on its food packaging and delivery systems.
Garden said at the time that former employees can apply for the 100 new positions Zume expects to have at his packaging company.
Zume’s collapse makes it another victim of overinvestment by venture capital firms in startups promising to challenge established industries with far-fetched technologies.
Softbank has notoriously invested about $20 billion in WeWork. Earlier this year, reported Bloomberg the company was worth less than $1 billion.