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Alfred is a collective robot arm that can use utensils to scoop and pick ingredients, exceeding human capabilities in speed and precision. The AI-enabled robot is a plug-and-play solution for quick-service restaurants and can be used to prepare salads, bowls, etc. without any alteration to a restaurant's layout or recipes
FREMONT, CA: AI robotics firm Dexai Robotics raised USD 5.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round of financing led by Hyperplane Venture Capital, with participation from new investors Rho Capital, Harlem Capital, Contour Venture Partners, and NextView Ventures. Proceeds from the funding round will be used to expand engineering, sales, and product teams, allowing the company to serve new cuisines and fuel its growth in the foodservice space. As part of the deal, Vivjan Myrto, a Managing Partner at Hyperplane, joined Dexai’s board of directors.
Dexai Robotics was the result of research collaboration in artificial intelligence for robotics among researchers at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, MIT, and Harvard. The research, led by David MS Johnson, CEO, and Co-founder of Dexai, resulted in breakthrough software innovations that enabled robots to control, for the first time, deformable materials such as ice cream, sushi-grade tuna, pico de gallo, etc. Meanwhile, Anthony Tayoun, CFO and Co-founder of Dexai, was pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School, when he was struck by the enormous labor gap in the restaurant industry. "Each restaurant operator I spoke with complained that their most difficult challenge is finding, training, and retaining staff," said Tayoun. “We founded Dexai to address the 150,000-person labor shortage in the restaurant industry so that restaurants can focus on hospitality and, by robots handling repetitive tasks, workforce satisfaction."
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Dexai Robotics' Alfred is currently the only robot working in existing kitchens, preparing meals from various cuisines faster, safer, and more affordably. "Alfred can be dropped into existing kitchens because its artificial intelligence software recognizes its surroundings and adapts to the task at hand," said Johnson. "Because Alfred uses standard utensils, it can make ice cream sundaes for one customer, quinoa bowls for another, and poke for a third. We're teaching robots how to 'see' and identify different objects and foodstuff and prepare the delicious recipes that people already know and enjoy."
Alfred is a collective robot arm that can use utensils to scoop and pick ingredients, exceeding human capabilities in speed and precision. The AI-enabled robot is a plug-and-play solution for quick-service restaurants and can be used to prepare salads, bowls, etc. without any alteration to a restaurant's layout or recipes. “The Dexai team identified a huge need in the food industry, resulting from shifting eating habits where people eat much more away from the home, and the rise of delivery, evidenced by the rapid growth of ghost kitchens and food ordering platforms,” said Myrto. “As a firm committed to investing in machine intelligence applications, we are excited to have Dexai bring intelligent robots to an everyday activity that we all enjoy: food.”
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