Nommi

Nommi, a startup backed by Wavemaker Labs, develops a bowl-making robotic kiosk that produces and dispenses customizable grain, noodle, or lettuce-based dishes 24/7 via a fully integrated cooking system. The unit features a wheeled cart system that moves 360 degrees under the food dispensers to assemble food bowls and is equipped with built-in self-cleaning. It has the capacity to hold 330 bowls and has 21 food lockers to store food-packed bowls, which are released upon scanning a QR code. The company also envisions making an end-to-end robotic solution in the future, where the robot can transfer prepared food to delivery robots in the market. Nommi claims installing its kiosks will help generate profit margins of roughly 58% compared to industry average profit margins of 13%. Furthermore, this could reportedly bring down employee wages to about 3% of revenue (vs. an industry average of 30%).

In November 2021, the company revealed several developments and deployment partnerships with Wavemaker Labs, global food tech platform C3 (Creating Culinary Communities), and chef Masaharu Morimoto, who own equity stakes in the company. C3 plans to deploy up to 1,000 robotic kiosks with global real estate and college campus partners. Morimoto will first deploy the unit at his “Sa’Moto” Japanese restaurant, featuring restaurant-branded menu items. The company is looking to launch a beta version of the current prototype unit in late-2022 and a production version by 2024.

In November 2021, Nommi launched as a standalone robotic kitchen solution and opened a seed funding round for reservation to raise up to USD 20 million at a valuation of USD 80 million.