Crown Digital

Crown Digital, a robotics company based in Singapore, offers a fully autonomous robot barista named “Ella”. The six-axis robot, developed with the help of Intel Tech Singapore, is compact in size (less than five square meters), operates around the clock, and guarantees consistency as per the company. The robot is built encompassing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotic automation, data analytics, and cloud platforms.

It can make around 200 cups of coffee per hour and has more than 100 drink configurations. Furthermore, Ella ensures contactless drink preparation as it operates in a sealed chamber. The robot takes orders via its online app, upon which the coffee will be made, and the client notified and served. In addition, the robot itself will finalize the bill and the payment as well. Ella also monitors the level of inventory available and sends notifications when refills are needed.

As of January 2021, the robot was deployed at one location, the company's coffee shop, Crown Coffee, in downtown Singapore. Crown Digital plans to scale the robot to 40 other sites in Singapore and then expand globally, starting with Japan. The company partnered with Stellar Lifestyle in August 2021 to introduce the robots at around 30 MRT transit stations in Singapore by 2022. It also has a partnership with the East Japan Railway Company (January 2021) to deploy its robots at selected train stations in Japan. The unit is deployed at two stations as a test run as of December 2021.

In January 2021, Crown Digital also revealed its plans to launch its Series A round shortly (at a valuation of SGD 33 million [USD 25 million]).